It's So Nice to Finally Meet You

A semi-fictional piece I wrote a few months ago while I was in a pretty dark mental place. This was more of an exercise in catharsis, getting words on paper. Inspired by the city of Vancouver.

It’s 9:30 on a Tuesday night.  No, I’m not downtown, and no, it’s not raining, but I have been listening to a lot of Barenaked Ladies lately, finding Stephen Page pretty damn relateable.  Post-Ladies, I mean.  Left the band, busted for coke, writing a kids’ book.  Realistically, I haven’t done any of those things but it doesn’t really change the fact that driving in the rain sounds like a nice distraction.  From what, doesn’t matter but everyone is lonely at midnight and that makes for a charming emotional place when it comes to identifying with a lot of reflective music.  So I’m lying here, just staring at the ceiling tiles.

Maybe downtown isn’t the worst place I could be.  Full of comrades and misfits, and everyone else in the world that doesn’t have a light to follow or a tunnel to keep them headed straight, it’s a little bit like home.  You move away from all you’ve ever known, get a taste of this misplaced comfort, then get thrown back into the vicious wash cycle of your static and lifeless roots.  The city is like a drug, and being away from it physically hurts you.  The wine is never as sweet, the music never has quite enough bass, and the people are just the slightest bit less beautiful.  So I bring myself back to the glassy streets.  The ragged man in the alley whose spastic masturbating is obscured by a dumpster.  The urbanites with the shopping bags from Michael Kors, and the bag-laden teenagers whose panhandling spoils only might truly go to a “bite to eat.”  It might not be much, but this is my home.  This is my family.

I find myself in a small bar off the water.  The clientele is sparse, but the air is warm.  As I pull up on a barstool and go to work on the first sips of my beer, I can’t help but notice you at the other end of the bar.  You’re by yourself, your slightly languid, slightly sloppy body movements suggest that the beer in front of you is not the first.  Still, it’s easy to find a relatability in that solitary buzz.  Like Stephen Page, but now I’m only ten feet away from my chance at a grounding block.  My banter with the bartender is polite and superfluous, but my awareness of you is constant and overbearing.  I don’t exactly understand it, but there is a feeling that parallels content, knowing that there might be someone in whom I could find solace; friendship, even.  At some point, our eyes meet, and in a moment of what I can only hope was mutual understanding, you raise your glass at me.  It’s the slightest movement, probably wouldn’t have even noticed if I wasn’t looking for it, but it hits me like a freight train.  My whole body relaxes; a feeling I haven’t had in months.  At least not without some series illicit encouragement.  The permanent anxiety subsides, the gnawing in my ear backs off, and for a second, everything goes away.  With you, our silent recognition, and this overwhelming sense of comradery, I feel calm. I raise my glass back at you, and take a drink.  It warms me like a hug from an old friend, and I can only believe that’s what you are.  Our moment was not romantic, but you were what I needed.  Someone with whom I could share one lonely drink, and find a way to make one sip a little less so.  You were my moment, the one that took me out of a requiem for a washed-up musician.  Although you may not take our moment for anything more than a quick glance with a stranger, you gave my city a face.  The reason I couldn’t stay gone.  My eternal love affair with this place that finds us, and gives us life.

Downtown was a good idea, Stephen.

Reviews

[Trigorin]

Not bad. You've kept the narrative fairly convincing, and your writing is technically correct. I think you ought to expand this a bit more as at present there's not too much substance to it, but it's still a nice read.