The Wild One

This entry is dedicated to Marlon Brando, and his brand of wildness.

I always wanted one, a troubled, brilliant mind. The characters in movies that I admired, the biographies of actors, artists, and musicians that I was interested in, they all had one thing in common, strife. Hardship, stress, longing, addiction, all traits that to me seemed like essential ingredients for success. A confused, and youthful interpretation of affection, for the bad things in life. Well I seem to have it lately, trouble. Where's the brilliance?

I woke up the other morning, fresh from a night of my usual petty drama and pathetic antics. I am getting a reputation for pulling disappearing acts, and Friday night was no different. After I paid my bill for the double gin and tonics I had been drinking, I decided to just continue on, right out the door, without saying good-bye. Instead I went on a 45 minute walk through the downtown core, blasting neurosis on my mp3 player.

I had been treating someone unfairly lately, and it was time to take care of some unpleasant business. So the morning started with a phone call, an apology, and then an arrangement to meet for breakfast. I was shaky, sketchy, nervous, and unshaven in three days, my hair was wet, and I quickly put on the same clothes that I was wearing the night before. I looked awful, and felt the same way.

I had to hurry, I was running late, so I jumped in the cab and told the driver to take me to chinatown. I was fumbling with my cigarettes, lighter, and cash when the driver pulled over to let me out in the middle of the street. Everything happened so quickly, I don't really know what really transpired, but this is how I remember it. I paid the driver, handing me my change, he dropped a twoonie on the floor. I bent over to pick it up, and as I did so, I opened the door of the cab and it sprung open. All at the same time I heard the driver yell, "watch the door!" a racing engine, the sound of a horn, and the dull thud of metal hitting metal. Before I knew it, the door to the cab was gone, and skidding down the street, where it came to rest in front of the black prelude that had just ripped it from its yellow hinges. Amongst the crowd that had assembled around the two cars, I exchanged my particulars with everyone involved and carried on, into the restaurant.

I ordered plain congee, and chinese donut, but breakfast was anything but plain. I tried to explain my behavior over the past month to my guest, but I don't think I made any sense, there was a lot of quiet discomfort. I couldn't eat anything, despite the fact that I hadn't put anything into my body, besides gin, in 48 hours, and after we paid the bill I was driven home. I felt like a lunatic, and wished for some normalcy, some weekly sit-coms and potato chips, maybe some barbecue salmon, with capers, but these things seem foreign and unattainable.

Except for the please and thank-you exchanged between customer and employee when I buy something, I have not spoken with anyone in two days. I feel removed from society. When I walk through the streets the music I play in my ears displaces me even further from the comings and goings of the civic community, making their activities seem filled with more emotion than what reality governs. Families on their way to the park, and homeless people sleeping under makeshift cardboard tents, I walk amongst them like I am invisible.

The one thing I have learned over this weekend, getting thrown out of clubs by muscular bouncers in cheap shirts, causing car accidents even though I don't drive anymore, and upsetting people that care about me by drunken tom foolery, is that its much easier to fantasize about other peoples discontent, than to live it yourself. It's not cool, and I would like some calm, because really, I am not into this. But as they say, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it, and certainly not as you imagined.