A Bright House

On Bright street in the east end of downtown Toronto where the houses slope wildly for their having been built over an ancient submerged creek, there may in fact be a youngish widow whose husband vanished during an ice fishing trip on lake Simcoe. His timing had been very poor, as the then young couple were planning for a family. His body never recovered, this young widow had been deprived of closure that would have allowed her heart to heal and hope again. Perhaps she acquired her first home due to its lessened property value, though the little street is famous and the neighborhood relatively quiet and ideally situated for one without a vehicle, and a wish to live a small reflective life.

Let us suppose that this pretty widow selected a simple job only a handful of blocks northeast, at Logan and Queen streets, as a waitress in a diner that bore all the classic hallmarks of such an establishment. There were tall dirty windows forming an L-shaped vista for the corner location, and the diners tended to be regulars who sat in the same chairs, ordered the same menu items, and lived by the same opinions. It was time stopped; a link of decades through bacon and eggs, toast, hash browns, breakfast sausages, always potent coffee with a bottomless mug, tiny glasses of freshly squeezed extra pulpy orange juice, the rumble of trolley cars on aging tracks stretching east and west... and this waitress purposely selected to be a part of the diner’s fabric until her mind could find its footing after the devastating loss of the love of her life.

This taking of a job that she was vastly over qualified for, where she would be on her aching feet six days a week from dawn until dusk, seemed in her twenty fifth year the ideal way to push back the yearning that devoured her thoughts so much of the time. With little else to do but work and get ready to work, with no immediate or extended family to occupy her so-called free time, and with devastating unanswered prayers that he return out of nowhere’s abyss to wrap her up in his arms, this silent sufferer faded into the tapestry of a city of millions. She watched fifteen years pass in their seasonal repeat. A lot of breakfasts, bottomless cups of coffee, names and faces.

Need we think of her tears?

The simplest movie, viewed alone on a Saturday night in the floor tilted master bedroom as she sat propped up against oversized pillows... let us say “The Bridges of Madison County”, would render her almost physically ill with refreshed grieving for the very same type of heightened romance that had once been in her hands, only to be yanked away by a viciously indifferent universe. Neighbors to either side of her bedroom may have heard her sobs through the old plaster and horse hair lath. Perhaps they knew her politely and felt compassion. She kept to herself and lived so quietly as to be almost ghostly. When watching a movie such as this, she no longer thought of a man in the sexual way. The years and the grief had erased her gender, desires, passion. Instead it was only her husband’s hands and thick forearms that she died incrementally for the missing of, or his sparkling loving gazes that were affixed to her impulsively when he attempted to convey his feelings through a fumbling inadequate tongue.

Salt of the earth, that man. An outdoors loving, strong, moral, hard working young man from a sternly disciplined upbringing in rural Ontario, and ever so beautiful. Permanently boyish features somehow set in a strong face under a shock of blonde hair that made him look almost Swedish in the classic sense. Six feet tall but seeming much taller through his gorgeous heart and laughter. He had a shine about him. A permanence fixed into direct and simple thinking. No poems, love gushing prose, nor thoughtful bringing home of cards and flowers from him. He wasn’t good at the little things and didn’t remember some of the details that were important to her, but he loved her so well, so purely. It was manifest in his hands, eyes, devotion. This had been her home ground. He hadn’t a jealous bone in him. Felt no threat by her many talented and attractive male friends of the time during their courtship, and only smiled when told of some of the gently spoken opinions that for her to love him and give her life to him was an “underachievement”. Yes, there were times when she felt pangs of doubt about him as her chosen life partner. She had been tempted on more than one occasion to sample what it could be like to be with someone more creative, artistically fluent, attuned to the smaller details that she held dear to her consciousness... he had never left his province, let alone country. He was not worldly or learned. Knew not the difference between Stanley Kramer or Kubrick. Preferred beer to any wine. Thought nothing of leaving engine parts on the dining room table. But love is the improbable chemical illness that operates according to no rule book. She loved this man as his devotion made her learn to love herself.

Need... we think of her tears?

Of course, yes, for it was those very tears that brought her to the attention of a customer who had never before set foot in the Logan Street Grill. A visitor from a prairie province who had come to Toronto to attend the funeral of his estranged father, this tall lanky early 50s man was not your usual male specimen. He had the piercing metallic blue-gray eyes of a timber wolf. Long expressive fingers that immediately attracted the eyes of those who first beheld him. He wore his hair in a long braid of chestnut brown, bead woven elastics cross-laced near the bottom of the tail, and on the day of his first visit to the Logan grill was wearing faded denim jeans and a well aged Levi's jacket to match. Laugh lines etched the corners of each luminescent eye, but he had an air of gravity about him when he took his seat at the back table and waited for Jenny to approach. In her usual state of functional stupor, she walked the length of the room and was caught in her breath by the look of the man; his energy. An unsettling wash of indescribable anxiety and familiarity spread through her belly. The same weather worn outdoorsman aura emanated from the gentleman that she had come to treasure in her vanished husband. He was, here in the metropolis with its clank and electro-hum self importance, a fish out of water.

His large hands were flat in front of him atop the table, placed as though he was about to rise from his chair. Jenny’s gaze dropped to the fingers, rings of varying size, hue, and styling on all but the thumbs. Viking runes were inked into the tops of his hands. A very old Timex watch was visible from beneath a tattered denim cuff. Jenny stopped to his left and handed him the breakfast menu, which his fingers took in a sweeping fluid rise as though he had just waved a magic wand. They locked eyes for a brief moment that seemed to trap her between heartbeats. His brow furrowed and the texture of his irises seemed to alter as did the facial features. Clean shaven, handsomely chiseled, he had the face of a man who had looked the same for many years. Definitely an old soul. Wise to soil and sky. His expression flashed during that eye locked moment into a middle ground that encompassed concern and curiosity. In hindsight, as she recalled the butterflies awakened in her stomach, that first gaze was both coldly appraising and more than a little intrusive... yet, time would place their first meeting into context.

“I already know what I want” he spoke in a soft baritone. Her mind went to a place not appropriate or entirely fair, given her assumption of double entendre. An assumption backed up by a track record of aging lonely men hitting on her, forming impossible fixations where no invitation for such had ever been given. He went on to order bacon and scrambled eggs, home fries, toast, coffee and orange juice. She felt his eyes upon her as she walked away, almost the heat of his gaze on her body. A body that still attracted attention that Jenny had little use for. Pouring his coffee, she startled herself with a sudden onrush of sadness. It rose up from her stomach, embroiling with the eternity ago memories of lovemaking. With the one man who had been her lover. The only one trusted with her body, given the key to hitherto protected soft places. This recall with its debilitating power had not visited her in so long, not without her bidding so as to twist the blade into the wound... she watched her hand shake as she carried the cup and saucer back to the table. Mister wolf eyes watched her approach, light on her feet, and felt a slight shock at the appearance of tears in her eyelids. She set the cup down with an unsteady hand, and he asked gently “may I have the orange juice now, as well?”

Jenny nodded quickly, not meeting his glance, and two tear tracks slipped down her cheeks to vanish into the soft curls of her reddish brown hair. This infuriated her and she wheeled around to fetch the juice, lifting a hand to wipe at her face. He watched her for a moment. Blinked his eyes slowly and then kept the lids closed for a few seconds. By the time she had dabbed her eyes dry with a tissue and poured the orange juice, he had added cream but no sugar and was sipping his coffee thoughtfully. Composed for the moment, Jenny returned with the small glass of fresh-squeezed that morning, placed it carefully on the table without looking at him, and was shocked anew when he said -

“Joanie, or Jenny?”

Her first internal reaction was a rising heat that she could feel in her face, almost an embarrassment, quickly replaced by head to toe chills as her mind scrambled to find the instant question as to how he could know her name. She met his eyes and felt cold panic, but his gaze was gentle... sad, curious, worried. He seemed ahead of the moment in his thoughts. Already on to the next question that he almost dare not ask.

“Jenny” he answered himself, not waiting, his voice trailing off into whatever it was he could see in his mind.

Around a lake hugging bend of Queen’s Highway 31, hood ornament catching glint from three o’clock sunshine coming down in angled slices through clumps of low hanging fast moving cloud stacks. Between breaks in provincial park forest, the driver can see white caps roiling across almost purple water. The purple of November like a bruise upon the landscape as it braces for five months of snow and wind battering.

There are two men in the front seats, both in their forties. One of them owns the vehicle, a Buick Skylark of late 80s vintage, and the other is a hitchhiker. The entire back seat is taken up by an orange tarp that the driver had pulled from his trunk upon stopping for the waving passenger,and atop that orange tarp is a third rider. This one is no longer living.

Earlier, somewhere in the proximity of two o’clock when the skies were still an umblemished blue, the driver had winced and spoken aloud -

“Oh, I hate seeing that.”

He was referencing a lump of gore in the two lane blacktop that caused him to swerve around its mess of smeared entrails and fur. Raccoons, skunks, cats, squirrels, porcupines... they were common. He couldn’t stomach the sight of canine roadkill. It stuck with him for the entire hour of driving that coincided with increasing winds and the overhead ceiling of high piling cumulus castellanus. It was with him when the lonely line of road revealed a waving man directly in the middle of the two lanes, hundreds of yards distant.

The backseat passenger no longer living, stretches the entire width of the car. It is lying on one side facing the backrest.

It has long wings, one tucked beneath the body, one broken and hanging limp to the floor.

One of the men in the front of the vehicle cannot help but to look back at it, repeatedly and longingly.

The other man, driving, asks his passenger where he wants to be taken, what he wants to do.

“Jenny” she answered, affecting a poker face. “How did you know that?”

He allowed himself a quick flash of charismatic smile, eyes crinkling and handsome lines deepening from the sides of his nostrils to curve and frame around his mouth. He extended a hand to her. “Ray, like the sun.” She took his handshake without thinking, her fingers slender and cool in the somewhat startling heat of his own. Her face flushed deeper, involuntarily. She dropped her gaze from his hand to the table, forgetting in that moment that he hadn’t answered the query.

Time performed a trick for Jenny’s perception; the firm yet gentle grasp of his hand seemed to last only seconds... a trolley car rattling by proving the duration as Ray let go of her fingers... but as in the realm of dreaming, a concave slowing of the experience took place and did so vividly. Her sensation was one of being somewhat violated and yet feeling a vast safety from his touch. Hence the further flushing of her features, the dropped eyes. Jenny had time to wipe her hand on the apron she wore, could hear the metal trolley car wheels squeal off toward the east, and felt wonderfully displaced in the moment.

When she did lift her gaze back to his own, his brief smile had been replaced by a deeper furrow of brow. His mouth was set in a thin line. He bit the bottom lip and nodded slowly. His eyes were fixed into hers but he was definitely not there in the diner. A glaze of distance coated each of his pupils, which had enlarged in subtle but noticeable cat-like fashion. Catching himself, possibly through the detection of concern in her stare, he refocused.

“Very pleased to meet you, Jenny.”

She nodded and returned his renewed smile, hers smaller and quite forced, before turning away to attend to the others in the diner.

When she brought the food he kept his eyes down and wore the same serious expression of earlier. She couldn’t help but watch him furtively from various places as she worked; he ate quickly as though ravenous, but was tidy about it. When finished, he went so far as to wipe the table with his napkin. Jenny watched him as he dug a ten dollar bill from his front pocket and felt a strange disappointment. Her curiosity was piqued. The years long cocoon of ritualistic motion, armor, routine, had been briefly and excitingly broken into. Who was he and why did he know her name? She had gone so far as to ask the owner and cook if he had spoken to the man previously or at any other time when she wasn’t on duty. The answer had come back “no”.

When Jenny saw him drain the last of his coffee refill, she rose from the stool behind the cash register but he was already striding across the length of the room toward her. She watched his easy gait, the long pony tail braid swaying, a man light on his feet. She had the sense of liquid. Of ages old tales. Harsh weather. She stood and hovered at the register and he ambled up to place the ten spot flat on the counter. This time his gaze was gentle, if still piercing.

“No change required, Jenny.”

“Thank you...” (she wanted to say his name and could not)

He smiled a little and turned to the front door, pushed it outward to step across the threshold, then paused with his back to her. Somehow, she knew he would. Wheeling around quickly and reaching into a front upper pocket, he produced a card, took the few steps back across the flooring to place it atop the ten dollars.

“I’m in town for a few more days, seeing the sights” he said quietly. “I may be able to help with what haunts you.”

Then he was gone. In the few seconds that it took for her to appraise the business card and what he had written in pencil across the bottom of its face, he pushed through the door and vanished westward across the diner’s front windows. Jenny picked up the card and felt oddly flat.

“Ray Townes ~ Clairvoyant ~ Trance Medium ~ Psychometry”

His cell number and the information regarding his Days Inn hotel lodgings veritably danced across the lower portion of the card in elegant script.