Something

That was when his mind began to drift towards the warmth of her memory and the brief time that they had spent together. It had been ages since he had felt this way, and he found it unsettling to have his mind in such a place while he was in a state of exhaustion, but unable to sleep. Was it the wine? Or the 6.5 beers that he drank earlier in the evening that brought the memory of a glorious summer crisp and vivid while the seagulls squawked like hungry vultures outside his window. Was it that woman with the dirty hair that he had his eye on earlier in the evening? Dirty and messy the way he used to like her to wear it. His thoughts quickly flashed to his walk home in the predawn when he passed a large touring bus parked outside a tall hotel and it reeked like an outhouse while the sound of the motor rang out into the empty street which amused him to no end, such a fancy bus, but it still stunk like a sewer. Then he thought of her skin, and he knew that it would always keep her young and fresh, holding the memory of her in that place that he could never visit again. Finally he fell asleep, and within seconds he was tucking her hair behind her ear before pulling her closer to tell her that he missed her, just quiet enough so she could barely hear what he was saying. But the moment passed as quickly as it arrived and the inevitable anger began to seep into his dreams and stories replayed themselves in one of a multitude of variations causing him to cry out in his sleep. The neighbors could hear him, they always heard him, stumbling around at night, throwing his keys across the room in futile defiance or fucking on the couch by the window with the stereo blasting music he was too old to listen too; a snippet of their morning conversations were often devoted to his antics, they thought he was pathetic. Morning arrives for our hero too, but there is no one to talk to. Instead he lays there thinking about death, and that although he is afraid of it, he hopes that it will come sooner than later, and ideally quick and unexpected.

Climbing out of bed, towards the stereo on the other side of the room he stands in his underwear, scratching his crotch in the brightness of a new day. Then he turns the stereo on, and a song that was sent to him by his lover while he was sleeping begins to play, and he mumbles under his breath, that it must have been the song.

The Year Of - There’s Something About You

Hey Leah...

Leah McLaren as Miss Rebecca Sharp (2002) detail, by Joanne Tod

Le-Leah, Leah! Le-Leah, Leah!
Here I go,
Back to sleep, and in my dreams, I’ll dream
With Leah, Leah, Le-ah!
--Roy Orbison

Jesus, where is Leah Mclaren? I miss my ladies all together in one place. The ones that are waiting for me every morning in the newspaper stand or the cafe, hell they're even at McDonald's! Anywhere you can get a Globe and Mail really, and sure the Globe is the nations paper, but Leah McLaren and Lynn Crosbie are my girls, and don't try and tell me different. They are the ultimate duo. Leah, more sexy, but Lynn so much more smart. Only a few pages separate them. We have breakfast together every Saturday, ok, sometimes it's dinner, and sometimes I even have to postpone until the next day, but it happens every week. And I know what you're saying, that I've already went on about my Globe babes, and it's true I have, but Leah is on holidays, and Saturday just isn't the same without her.

I hadn't made it home Friday night after drinking 3 bottles of wine with Frannie. And Saturday morning, as I sat there contemplating the fact that I had missed my ride to the coast where we were to drive as far as we could go West, bringing our party to the absolute edge, to sleep on the beaches and to run through fires under the stars; for no reason at all, except that it was the place where we had to stop because we could go no further. Thinking of what I had missed, I sat there shirtless on Frannie's balcony with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth and the Globe and Mail Frannie had delivered to her door every day in my hands. Their was a huge void in Section R. Who was there to take her place? That god awful column called Mommy Blogger written by Rebecca Ecklar wherein her most current contribution to the Globe's "Style" section she outlines different perfumes for babies? Or Jeannie Becker, who, as I sat there smoking in disgust while Frannie was getting ready to take me to breakfast proceeded to shamelessy plug some twit who set her up with a free corset that she jammed herself into for some function in Toronto?

Lynn, darling, you'll have to take care of me while Leah is gone for the summer, sunning with some brute no doubt. Just try and dumb things down a bit, you know it get's a bit tiresome having to re-read the last three paragraphs of Pop Rocks because I didn't quite get it.