My Name Is Joseph Charles Wilfred...

A few days ago we played football with Andy and met some Irish guys who were awesome. We then went and drank lots with them, and ended up back on the same University of Toronto football pitch playing football on a sprinkler field pitch. Very very wet times ensued. The guys are great, we went and watched the Arsenal vs Celtic match with them the next day too.

Today we went to Canada's Wonderland. It was awesome, we went on lots of great rollercoasters, and then the heavens opened. It was the biggest storm I've ever been in. Ever. I was pretty scared, there was lots of lightning. Then, soaked, we eventually got the bus and saw debris and boxes and lots of stuff in the air, followed by an ACTUAL tornado. The scariest thing I've ever seen, a real tornado in the distance, lightning everywhere. Then in Yorkdale station the rain was dripping in everywhere. It was an incredible but scary experience. A great day.

Become addicted to the feeling, the wallowing and you become a yo-yo, a boomerang. Never away for too long, always back on that stool at that bar, (or at the very least a stool at a bar.) You don't remain the man of mystery for long, the man you long to be, sitting at the bar in dark glasses as a pretty bargirl wipes down the surface. Soon everybody in there knows you for who you really are, which is pretty much a nothing. Nobody, kinda like me.

"..and one for yourself," I lazily mumble to the girl in the low-cut top behind the bar. I'm already spinning, but can focus on her. God, I must look a mess, I don't understand how I could ever let myself get this way. There I go again, taking his name in vain, I find it hard to see how he could ever forgive me now when I reach the gates. I've become someone even the best of samaritans crosses the road to avoid.

"I'm fine," she states, "shouldn't you be going home? You've been here for hours now, your wife will surely be worrying about you."

Shit.

I'd forgotten I'd made up a false love to make me look less of a loser, less alone than I actually am and have been since a summer that lasted a decade. I remember when I was young, a novice and worked a summer job for a law firm, I used to stand on my own with a photocopier and just listen to the paper get sucked in and the copy be made, and then listen to it come out of the other end. I remember thinking there was no sound in the world as depressing, as lonely and isolating as that sound. Repeating, drumming, sticking inside your head. A sound that makes you feel alone, that draws you in but leaves you hanging. Only right now, years on, I realise there are more sounds of loneliness than just this, so many, many more.

"There's no rush. She's out of town this weekend anyway," I bluff. Apparently my eyebrows twitch when I'm lying, I hope they weren't doing so as I spoke. I order another beer and a whiskey chaser, down they go and I leave the bar, feeling the ghosts of my imaginary family chasing me down. Outside it is still light and I begin to spin and stumble up curbs. Finding the keyhole at these times is always hard, and as I fall through the opening door into the living room cum bedroom I see that everyone has arranged a surprise party for me.

"Surprise!" they say. Only there is nobody in the apartment at all, just the fan blowing recycled air around and it is still too hot. It's just I'm sure I can see balloons with 'Happy Birthday' scrawled on them tied to a chair but it's not true. Tom Waits wrote the soundtrack to my life before I was even born, and I put it on and I think I'm slow-dancing with myself. My body feels heavy, a bulk, a load that has weighed on too many people in the past who couldn't take the strain forever, and my eyes shut and I spin. Asleep.

***

My neck aches, I must have slept in an odd position. There are flies hovering above the sink and when I look I see I must have left the window open. I don't think I will ever leave, I am that boomerang and I will always be back. Day in, day out, I need that feeling. I don't even know what the feeling is. The feeling of being alone in a room full of faces, I guess. That and the hazy feeling I get in my head, the one that blurs out the face of the one person I drove away. It's a cycle, that gradually, over time picks up pace until it is an unstoppable explosion of waking, drinking, puking, sleeping. I am stuck and I have to look into the deepest part of me to even find anything that even resembles something that wants to be rid of this.

***

Right now, the bar is buzzing like it tends to be on a Saturday night. There's a new girl behind the bar, innocence behind her eyes. I heard the last one was let go because she held an illegal after hours, and there was alcohol and drugs and sex on the pool table. I haven't been here for a week or so, I tend to do circles around the city, a night in each bar. The money drains but I somehow find more when I need it the most. I used to drive long haul, but that all went to hell when I was caught with a bottle on a long distance journey. They gave me the option, resign and leave quietly, or be forced and handed in. I chose the right one, but I haven't done a days work in 6 months. An old man is sitting at the far end of the bar, he taps the bar with his old knuckles two times and beckons for me to come up and sit with him. I've already necked 3 beers in less than 30 minutes, and I feel a little bit light-headed. His face is old, worn and I concentrate on the lines on his face. I follow them like they are roads, each one leading to different peaks and troughs of his skin, some roads careering into one another whilst others have safe, straight journeys to their destinations. He looks at me and I can tell he knows my weaknesses. Somehow, all of them.

"Son, you sure know how to drink," his taut lips barely move as he speaks. I simply raise my right arm (holding a beer) and toast to him. He stares like I have disrespected him. He continues:

"Maybe you should slow down, you look the worse for wear," he says in a Dixie state accent.

"You aren't from round here?" I shrug as I speak, I'm trying to avoid making any eye contact with him. He knows me.

"It doesn't matter where I'm from. You know, Son, I saw a light above your head and I think my past might just be able to help you realise there is more to life." He is staring at me and I'm beginning to feel powerless. I look in his eyes.

"More to life than what?" I stammer, "My life is perfect."

There is silence. I don't know what it is about this man, but I feel like I want to speak. Say everything, I want to fall at his feet and admit defeat. Tell him all my pain. I feel it welling inside of me, it's rushing past my heart, up my throat and towards my lips.

"I spent my whole life pushing people away, hiding myself, losing people." As he speaks I can see reminiscence in his face. "It took me too long to realise I had nothing, I was pushing away everything and everyone that I care for. Now, for me, it is too late. I am an old man, nobody can love me, not now. Son, only you can save yourself. You need to leave this place, start again. You have time on your side, you can still be happy. Please, don't become me." I am listening, but again, I find it too hard to look into his eyes. Not even for shame, it's because there is a light shining over him. The most blinding white light of all. I put sunglasses over my eyes. My eyes are hidden and now I am crying. Only a little, but enough.

"Are you an angel?" falls from my lips. The old man smiles to himself. He is still handsome in old age, I'm sure in his youth this smile won him many a lover.

"Son, I'm a nobody, kinda like you. Go save yourself while you have the time."

***

I am on a bus. The city is behind me, I can only just see it if I turn my neck and squint my eyes. With twisted neck, I wave goodbye, to nobody in particular.