Ephemeral Reflections

First Draft

An inconsequential spot on my shoe hypnotically expends my attention. It's funny or sad, depending on how you look at life, how accoutrements of any value tend to superficially attract special attention. I look around and come to a realization. A fork in the road if you will.

"Why hasn't anything gone according to plan for me?" I'm not sure what the connection was with my shoe but revelations apparently hit us when we least warrant them.

"Man, all this time strutting around aimlessly like a useless blue-tongued skink kidding myself into accepting that I've learned to cope with my bad fortune." Today is different. Yes sir - or ma'am - today is the day I make a change. I ignore the spot and tie my shoes.

In energetic steps, I head to retrieve the mail. Another rejection letter.

"Shoulda started earlier. I shoulda listened to myself."

Now there's a game one should avoid - The shoulda game.

My grade school teacher Mr. Roth was always fond of saying "It's all about planning, kids." That mantra was drilled into you right up to high school. That a 16 year-old should know what they wanted to do with their life at such a stupid age escaped me at the time.

In any case, I was fucked before the game even started if Mr. Roth was right. I was never much of a planner. There is a planning gene I am sure. But spontaneity is my gig. Insomniacs don't have much patience for planning. But this is a mere hiccup to me. I could not be bothered with the planning of my soul.

An objective of mine in life, from an early age, was to play hardball in the Majors. Some people called this a dream but I saw it as a legitimate goal. I knew that the odds were stacked against anybody making the Big Leagues, let alone some kid from Montreal. I wasn't dumb. Not that my grades supported this assertion. It's gambling, lest anybody forget, on low probabilities that pay out the most. I was terrible at math. I'm still waiting.

Most people, on the other hand, in an effort to make life more balanced, live their lives based on the principles of probabilities. They make sure that the odds are always in their favor. Not me. There is no real reason for this. Some people can exact their budget to the penny. I, on the other hand, can't even spare a lousy 12 seconds to cut a "50 cents off Smucker's" coupon. Couldn't be bothered. You know what they say, a nickel here a dime there retire by 65. I don't have that kind of time to give.

I learnt to keep my hopes and dreams within the confines of my migraine-inflicted head. One gets tired of fighting the negative energies hurled upon you. "Get serious, Jimmy" was a popular phrase. In the end, it was nobody's business what I wanted. It's sad but true. Humans can be a petty and envious bunch of primates.

After my injury, I was forced to get a job. Through a family contact, I ended up in a sooty financial institution. The money was good and it was supposed to be temporary, so I traded in my beloved glove for hip ties. Crashing home plate in a meaningless game turned out to be a split-fingered fast ball into my destiny - the ultimate irony. Though my knee, that crucial joint, would never know. The surgery was a success but it was like having a lobotomy on my leg. It just wasn't the same anymore.

"God, is telling you something," my mother told me. This spiritual epitaph was confusing for a couple of reasons. The first was, if he was telling me something he was a poor communicator. Second, my mother said this because she hated sports. She was happy to see her son in a stable environment leaving home with a fucking lunch and a suit.

My mother didn't understand. Outside the diamond, I could not shake the stench of coming up short on anything I attempted. Once inside, I could do no wrong. It was as close to imagining what it must of felt like within the safe and comfortable boundaries of the womb. Baseball was indeed different in my life. I even had a nickname - The Viper - given for my lethal curve ball. It turned on you so fast it stung you. Left-handers always tend to have an edge in sports and I clearly had one in baseball.

I did not have the classic physique of a pitcher. I was bestowed with small hands, which in turn means I had small feet, which at this point is where all coincidences end. The fingers were strong enough to grip the ball so that's all that mattered. My shoulders were not imposing in their width and I used this to my advantage to hitters who did not take me seriously. Most of them learned quickly enough that I owned them. My tall and slim stature was deceiving, since I was blessed with sturdy legs that gave me the extra leverage I needed for my delivery.

"He looks like he should be wearing Lacoste shorts," I overheard one coach say a few years back.

He was right. I was probably better suited for tennis, but I felt more at home with an old leather glove beaten down with sweat, dirt and spit than a pair of Lacoste shorts. In tennis, you haughtily change your racket as quickly as you do girlfriends. In baseball, you hold on forever to the bat that spawned your first home run. My replay of my life is abruptly ended when I look down at my watch. "Shit! I'm really late now!" I glance back quickly at my place "Tidy enough."

Down on the streets, my irreverent demeanor grants me crooning status. In the investment world it rubbed people the wrong way. To me, I owned the streets - not in any legal or lustful way but more lyrically.

I could never figuratively own an investment house. One would get the sense the feeling was mutual with the neighbors and dwellers of Strada Street; a street that was once home to a strong contingent of Italians from the Mezzogiorno, was now becoming Byzantine in its cosmopolitan make-up. I was one of the last relic of a time long gone. That I was a throwback to an era long gone was obvious just by my attire. I had, without being conscious of it, two styles - one for the galaxy of high finance and one that expressed my true intentions about life. It was Zegna suits by day and converse shoes by night. Instinctively, at least in my eyes, people congregated around me as if to get a glimpse of the past.

The block maintained a certain flare and jive to it unknown to adjacent streets. Kids were part of the decorum and rooted in the architecture. One of them jumps out in front of me, freaking me out a little, "Hey, Viper, we need a coach." I look at my watch as if I have other places to go, but I run with the nipper to help his team out. Along the way Mrs. Farina, a feisty 60-something owner of a local eatery, who clearly possessed shocking beauty in her youth, tries to get a word in as I jog past. "Mr. Tardelli, don't forget about our appointment tomorrow!" "I won't, I won't. I'll be there" while running backwards, all the while the awesome tandem of her pure black hair and eclectic green eyes hypnotizing me.

I was supposed to got meet Thomas. "I'm sure Thomas won't mind. It's not like we don't see each often. I'll call him later."

When I arrived at the diamond the kids were a sad, dysfunctional bunch of isolated sandlot misfits. Their eyes popped wide open when they saw me. I can tell that the parents were pleased too. They told me so. We won 5-4. It was, as I was to find out later, their first win in two seasons. They deserved a pizza and I was more than glad to oblige them.

My place, my lifeline of sorts, was blessed in this manner. After each day from a dreaded corporate job, I would get back in touch with my senses whenever I roamed the streets. "It's a cookie-cutter world and I need to find a nano-niche." There was no better place to do this than at Yogi's.

Yogi's was a place that could not make up its mind. A pizza parlor that served fine ice-cream and imported only Irish beer, as well as special vintage Porto. To me, it was a bistro and I'm sticking to this.

The feel of a place, like a film or other forms of art, is paramount to my accepting it. The place was filled with Yogisms. One could enter the urinals and be entertained for half a minute by reading Berra's quotes. Piss, laugh and zip up.

Yogi's was owned by Mack Cianfrocco, a mulatto man of Italian heritage. His father, of course, was from Italy. Calabria to be exact. Mack loved Yogi Berra, but was a bigger hockey fan. A supreme Habs fan. Go figure. What made Yogi's, though, was its jazzy, smoky and forbidding aura. It was a throwback to the 20s and 30s. I liked that. He inherited the building and left it in its original state. With classic silent films, jazz and blues constantly showing and playing, the place was one big hommage to Americana. To top it all, major sports events always trumpeted all this. All of us who flocked to Yogi's simply adored its inconsistent personality.

The other day Mack pulled me aside. "I need you to do something for me." I stared back at him. I knew he was waiting for me to say something, but I didn't.

He continued "Could you bring this note over to the other side of town to my girlfriend? I'd put it in the mail but I don't want to risk it getting lost. It's not time sensitive but I would like for her to get it within the next few days."

"That's it? The way you approached me I thought you wanted me to deliver a 'package'.

"You wouldn't deliver a package for me?" Mack blurted out with a conniving smile.

"Why me, Mack?"

"I know you work nearby and I won't be able to get there any time soon."

"I don't get it. Why don’t you wait until you see her after work?" I persisted.

"Kid, you have a lot to learn about women." I caught on. Sort of.

"I'll deliver the note." I grabbed my dark blue coat and was off.

As I walked out Thomas spotted me and instantly cranked out

"You ginny bastard! Stand me up will ya?"

"Listen, Tom, I'm sorry. I was called in last minute to help out The Hawks." I explained.

"I have a cell, Jimmy."

"I know. Let's go to Farina's." Given the sudden change in plans I never did end up delivering the note that day, as Mrs. Farina decided to push the appointment up during my dinner with Tom. After two hours of providing financial advice, I was ready for bed. It was all worth it. It usually is when the food comes with no price tag.

The tenebrous hours brought with it, on a silver tray, the embittered reality of my affliction. A scratchy version of Erskine Hawkins 'Tuxedo Junction' original on vinyl plays in the background. Rather than soothing me, it irritated the jazz out of me. I envisioned myself throwing records against the wall. But I was endowed with too much of a tight ass for such an activity. These were expensive records after all.

There was no use in staying in. The fly on the wall was beginning to get the better of my sanity. I look in the mirror and notice my eyes are a darker shade of green. This hasn't happened in a while. I also decided that I needed a haircut. Long hair is nice but a crewcut may shake things up a little. I still feel I'm aging well. Some white hairs are beginning to infiltrate my head but this doesn't worry me. For some reason, the light scar on my eyebrow is annoying me.

Enough. "The diner calls me." I hear, figuratively of course, the sullen sounds of the streets carried forward by an exquisite yet inelastic wind. A sundry of personalities awaits me. A parliament of human owls has descended on the famous local diner. It is my turn to be a poet.

For me, one of the consequences of not sleeping for days is that when I do manage to slip in and steal a couple of hours of sleep, my mind treats me to haunting, if not downright surreal, dreams or nightmares. The impact is so great sometimes that many dreams have stayed with me until this day - as vivid as the day I dreamt them.

In one of my more absurd ones, I'm at a restaurant with two imaginary friends. The hostess politely asks " Table for one?" The tone of the question was one of those open-ended ones that allowed someone to confirm if they were in fact alone. I wasn't. I looked to my right and left. "Three," I tell her. I don't know why no one sees Dan and Gad. It's not like they're lost or imperceptible. She has a look of bewilderment but seats us nonetheless. For this I am most gracious. "Thank you, Flo. And tell Mel to speed it up." They all laugh at the off-the-cuff reference. She comes back with a menu. "Excuse me" I tell her. "We will be needing three menus. Sharing will just waste time." She responds "But... you're alone." "No I am not, Jo-Lene! Bring me three menus!" My tone softens with a dignified "Please." She returns with them. Shortly thereafter she comes back. We give our orders. I had to speak for Dan and Gad, who both went to the washroom at the same time. They always do that. It's a running joke they have. They think I don't know but they fail to assume in their buffoonery that I created them. I'm a step ahead of them today. "Dan will have the sturgeon and Gad will have the duck." They each don't like those dishes.

"Can we have some water, please?" I begin to talk to my friends, sinking in anticipation to see the look on their faces when the orders come in. A man drops a card on me. "Dr. Youp psychologist? Now that's a fifth this week!" Unfazed, we laugh, we argue, we cry. It was a perfect lunch if not for that tin toy soldier staring at me. Its gaze was beginning to warp my sense of reality. Tic? What tic? Why do I have a sudden tic? Oh, tic on my arm. I asked the waitress to move the tin solider who was by now drumming at a furious pace. She told me she could not. I tried to make the best of the situation. I slice my cantaloupe, which I pronounce cantaloop. I don't know why. I just do. Dan and Gad tell me to let it go and ignore the toy soldier, but I can't. It's just too much. I get up and walk towards the tin solider. I was a virtuous vigilante descending upon an officer in all its uniformed glory. I hack it to bits with a mini- axe I carry in my inner pocket.

I return to my table. The service is good here. The food is not bad, either.

The diner, to get back to reality, was another one of those interesting places that was owned and operated by an insomniac who opened the place to occupy his time. Mike was his name. Or was it Mick? I never seem to remember. He had pictures of famous insomniacs plastered tastefully everywhere. Groucho Marx, Joe DiMaggio, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, W.C. Fields, Franz Kafka, Alexandre Dumas and Judy Garland were reminders that even the rich and famous had hard nights.

Regardless, there is no indication that he belonged behind the counter of such an establishment. He reminded me of a mild Italian version of Woody Allen. Neurotic, witty, careless and more interested in reading King Arthurian legends. Come to think of it, his diner was a clash between 50s kitsch and a Renaissance fair. As funny as it may sound or seem, it worked. If a record would be playing it would have to be where the gyrating pelvis movement of Elvis meets the spiritual madrigal compositions by Palestrina.

The patrons in the place, I am sure, are unaware of the peculiar decor. Caught in their own oblivious vortex, nobody really makes much of an effort to know each other in the diner. Who has time for such networking anyhow? Once a person steps in they are immediately transferred metaphorically, via one of the Rivers of the Underworld, into another realm. They are taken away from the real world to which they physically exist, into one that is purely fantastical in its cartoon-like milieu. Literally, the street I am familiar with in the daytime is clearly different from the one I lurk about at night.

Talking is rare in the diner. The majority of the activity is focused on silent deafening contemplation. The only sounds heard are the ones whereby people give their respective orders. The counter in the diner is the perfect cover. You can just look ahead at the grill if you desire. No need to look to your left or right. If you do, you run the risk of catching someone's desperate eye. If that happens, you look straight into an abyss that may reflect your life. All of these minds… lost. There are indeed, I have come to realize, two versions of myself. If only everyone knew.

On this night, one person bucks the trend and solicits a conversation with me. You can tell that this guy had been places. Everyone in the diner felt his presence.

I've never seen him before. I would recollect a man wearing a sharp navy pin-stripe jacket with orange tan shoes. He looked somewhat beaten down by the years, but you get the sense that he fought this tooth and nail.

"Nice car. Sebring?" he asks.

"Yup," I respond, trying to avoid this going further.

There's no stopping this guy tonight. No sense fighting it.

"Into the classics?"

"I guess. I had a '70 Plymouth Hemicuda once."

"Whoa, what 425 horsepower?" He knew that it was a 425.

He continues. "I remember heading out to the Vineland Speedway in New Jersey years ago. As a matter of fact, I've watched them Maserati's you drive win a race at Pescara in 1954."

Great, now I was interested.

"1950s were the glory years of racing" I proclaim. "Yeah, they sure were. They were good to the Yankees and Habs also." I add, "Just like the 60s were fine to the Packers and Celtics." He laughs. "You do get it."

Just when I was beginning to be engaged, the teaser changes the direction of the conversation. He glanced at my back pocket and noticed a paper I had folded.

"What's that you're reading, son?"

Shrugging my shoulders my response is non-chalant in its delivery. "I always leave my house with reading material. It's a political and literary journal."

"Are you some sort of scholar?" he asks.

"In a sense."

"What are your thoughts about the world today as it stands?"

He is beginning to test my intellectual waters. His question is posed in such a way that one gets the feeling he has the answer figured out. I nonetheless acknowledge the question knowing full well that I could end up in a lengthy discussion.

"Funny thing is that all this reading, hours worth a day, and I still can't make sense of things. The more I know, the less I understand."

"Smart guy. Lesson #1 in life. We all know squat." He shakes his head with resignation

"It's so damn easy to be a cynic these days."

I tend to agree with him. Except I had to go to the bathroom.

"Excuse me for a minute."

Once inside the bathroom, I was treated to an argument between two guys. They seemed to be a couple. They were arguing about getting married. It seems one wanted to and the other didn't. "Welcome to hell boys," I chuckle to myself.

When I returned to the counter, the man with the piercing gray eyes was gone. I was slightly disappointed.

Life goes on. The intimate spaces carried me over to her playful smile. Not much is exchanged as she pours me coffee. I don't drink coffee, only espresso, but who's complaining at this time, in the dead of night? In the process of this routine, I stare awkwardly out into the sullied serenity of the night. Only the natural light of the moon reflects from a damp street.

I look back at her and say, "I'll have the Diner special" in the manner of a hardened man. Except, I'm not all that hardened and there is no diner special at 3am. She snaps me out of my mild trance.

"You're cute but your eyes aren't going to make another order."

"Right. I'll take a lemon and cranberry muffin."

"Low-fat?" she asks.

"Screw the low-fat."

It took me an hour to eat the muffin. The bill had been turned upside down under the coffee cup for at least 45 minutes. When I grab the bill I notice she had written something. It read: "I guess I'll be seeing you." I wink, imagining myself adjusting my fedora, with a chuckle.

The next day I awoke with an odd thought, "I wonder what Jenna is up to". I shrugged it off and prepared for work thirty minutes late. Despite my tardiness, I refused to cheat my health out of a fruit. I insisted on a grapefruit. "Why am I so complicated? Can't I have an apple on the fly?" Five minutes after that I decide to forego work altogether and designed a plausible excuse for my boss.

I'm not cut out to work for anybody. The ghastly, grey aura of office life is perfect for those who engage in gibberish talk. It can also act as a powerful soporific pill. In my estimation, I should not be wasting away in a faceless corporation. Stuffy, faceless and utterly without any sense of humor.

I did not feel guilty for not going in. I got dressed and headed out. The rugged maple trees outside my home, once owned by my great-grandparents, were swaying brilliantly - as most of nature's offspring often do. It didn't matter much to me. I took out the absolute striking '62 Maserati, bought by my grandfather, for this stunningly perfect autumn morning. Even the movement of poorly driven cars by nowhere people on a highway was something I could find beauty in. A good way to deliver Mack's note.

It was one of those days where not even a traffic jam of mythical and staggering proportions, that tends to heighten every paranoid and impatient fiber in my body, could conquer and overcome me. Beating myself up trying to figure out the origin of a traffic melee easily removed seven years from life.

As I drive along, long past the part of town I was supposed to deliver the note, I snap my fingers to loud music that is playing. I furiously search for my wallet thinking I forgot to bring it with me. Over the wallet is the note. I pull it out and drop it on the seat next to me. I'm tempted to read it.

Shortly, my fingers begin to ache with all that snapping - remnant pain from a fastball that smashed upon my knuckles. On this part of the highway the green and rust colors of the city's lethargic skyline become apparent. "This city is looking more and more rickety." "Enough of this. I have to bring this note." Time to turn back.

Just as quickly, I realize that just off this part of the highway was our old hang out.

It was as if I was summoning a new beginning. Those were the days indeed. Of what, to be specific, I wasn't sure. Never did I look backwards, just forward. Fondly, I contemplate the former hang out. It has not been kept well by the city. It was under a small bridge connecting two small towns. There was an unpaved path along the riverbank that allowed us to walk for miles. That was still there but it seems so deserted now.

Then, Jenna entered my mind. Twice in one day?

She was the coolest and prettiest of the lot. "She, as they say, 'got' Jimmy," as one of my buddies put it. I don't recall, strangely, why or how things began to dissipate between us. I didn't marry my high school queen, as modern fairy tales dictate. Now I seem destined to forever intertwine with a new person. Each knew less of me than the last. The longer you go on dating without purpose, the less of your spiritual make-up people are interested in. I miss her.

Today, the hang out is nothing - just a listless spot. Unknown to many who pass it that it once housed people with spirit and high-hopes. Now, those spirits have turned to grime. Life changes and moves forward but in a sense some never really do. They remain suspended and slaves to a different time and era.

We knew how to have a good time in style. We were the kind of gents that would drop a few coinages in a jukebox and sing loudly - not with obnoxious fervor, but with tasteful spirit. We cared little about the other people. Jenna was always present, it seems.

I try to laugh about this predicament of mine. I feel like I'm caught in Spider Man's web without the 'friendly neighborhood note.' A final exclamation mark on the fact that I'm not the contender I wish to be. I see too much absurdity in life's equations and simply accept that I have my fair share, if not more than the next guy does. I figure something will come up. Though deep down I distrust this attitude.

Have I fallen into the definition of 'loser'? I estimate I'm close to it but not quite there. In the hourglass that stares back at me, and arbitrarily I give myself one more year. No, that is much too long. Six months. "That'll give me some time to make something happen."

By this point I have pulled off the road. All my life I fought hard to create a pseudo-conservative exterior. I'm nothing more than a wild bon vivant at heart; more a writer than financier. A troubadour or Bohemian would be a stretch but I'd settle for a modern minstrel of sorts. Income and balance sheets are necessary for a life of luxury and comfort. I reach for my wallet and pull out a card - Max Freder: Literary Agent.

"Shit! I forgot about this guy." It was given to me at a friend's party a few months back. Back then it had no merit to me. Now it seems to not only be taking space in my thin wallet but the weight of regret was beginning to be felt. I hurl the card onto the dashboard. It begins to dance before me, mocking his penchant to defer and procrastinate.

The note is still on the seat. I drift off again. From an early age I never wanted to be an engineer, because my math skills - in case you haven't noticed. I fear numbers - were suspect. Those trains coming at different speeds from opposite directions always confused that unexercised part of my brain.

Nor did I ever once mention that I wanted to be a doctor. I was too out of focus for such an important job. My left hand would have made me a clumsy surgeon. What about a police officer or fire man? My health, it turns out, was dubious at best. My shoulder would give out arresting a suspect. Recently, I had romantic notions, at the age of 34, of being in the Special Forces.

The one thing I seemed destined for was a professional career in baseball, but God dealt me a final crucial and harsh blow when my knee was torn apart during a collision at home plate. "Why I didn't slide head first as I always had, I'll never know." There was no sense in harping. It is what it is. Maybe God dropped subtle hints along the way and I just didn't pick them up? Maybe mom didn't mean it to be literal.

My mind has its own agenda and I return to Jenna. I heard from a boyhood friend, the compassionate pugilist Joe 'Cutter Ace' Diviola, that Jenna was in Chicago. More importantly, that she was single. Then again, Cutter was not exactly a reliable source. To me, because memory can deceive, Jenna just appeared in my life bursting onto the scene. Never did she leave my thoughts.

A complete day can be spirited away, giving way to the night when spent thinking. I was without reason sitting in a fine automobile contemplating much of nothing, holding on to a pendant. Staring at a card of all things. "I don't deserve this car or Jenna," I unfairly intimate.

Unfair as it may sound I drive off and head to the address Mack gave me. I park and begin to examine the establishment. It's an office. I go inside and begin to look around. My body was met with a bolt of energy. My heart began to pump wildly as if I had a condition. The cardio exam I did a few months back showed my heart was strong and healthy. It felt, in any event, weak and highly vulnerable at that moment.

"Jenna?" I mutter in quiet disbelief. I move so as to hide away. "She still moves me after all these years." It finally hits me, slow as I am, whom the note may be destined for.

"It can't be. It just…"

I peak at the top of the letter. "October 5…" I try to impatiently open it up without compromising the privacy of the note. To my shock the intro read: "Dearest Jenna, love of…." I couldn't stand to read anymore. I go outside and into my car. It's past 6pm. I'm too stunned. "I just can't believe it."

I leave and drive home. Confused about what I should do. "The final curtain in the plot that is my life. I just can't take these blows anymore." I thought about going back to Mack and telling him I wouldn't be able to grant him the favor he asked of me. What would I tell him? It would take too long to explain it. I had to come up with another angle. Usually, I am quite adept at solving befuddling situations, but not now. Not when a former love is involved. Did I lover her? Or was it just an infatuation? Now I was desperate. I was reaching. Maybe tomorrow I'll leave and go look for her.

The next day, I leave work early and head out to Jenna's place. I also plan to quit work. A change would do me good. I pause for a moment. I need to go buy kitchen garbage bags. I pause once more - annoyed by my last mundane revelation. I notice a person outside a coffee shop. Crazy spontaneous ambitions are the parking spot of the aimless. My heart is pounding frivolously.

"Jimmy, you're 34 for St.Paul's sake."

I calmly and indifferently recite, with a positive smile, "There's Carlo. He owes me 10 bucks." I park the car, light a cigarette, and look back at the overpass.

There was a time when Carlo and I were standing in line at the movies and we overheard a parent going incessantly about her child. As I recall Carlo quipped, "Could you believe this chick? Already pressuring her kid to dance? Look at the kid. He can’t be older than six. Ugly too." She kept going until Carlo cracked and turned to her. "Be happy my ass. You're just hoping and praying things work out. All these parents and their "he's so advanced for his age" crap. By my calculation, assuming they are right in their damn delusions, the next batch of high fat muffins will be a genetically enhanced generation of super genius aliens from Gondar. Not gonna happen. Some will falter and others will be lazy. It's the way of the world. How else will the system survive? Humans as a species depend on it. Being a sucker and a dumb fuck is the best job your kid is ever going to have, as he will actually contribute to the superior capitalist system. Mediocrity pays if you know how to use it. Now keep quiet and stop denying your child the braces he obviously demands."

I am still unsure about the note, and I think about Jenna. Did I just stumble upon a new lease on life? I wonder. I walk in an enhanced, but assured pace towards an unsuspecting Carlo.