SIR

For the sake of this conversation, we will call the subject " Sir".
This is what our waitress called him first and foremost, before her language and his temperment degraded.

***
I still cannot get over the weather in Toronto. Here I am, sitting on a patio, enjoying a summer breeze. I, in no way, feel cold. I am staring at my drink and contemplating the words that myself and my friend are exchanging. We have been discussing relationships, perceptions and the internal warfare which comes with love. My friend brings up a good point. She asks  why gays have to announce their sexuality, when heteros never do. We discuss society and the rules and the bisexual properties of love that everyone should really just accept.

The bubbles continue to dance to the surface of my beer, mimicking our discussion in their energy and more so in their ephemeral qualities of our ideas. I love these talks, I love that i can have them and that I have friends who like to think.

It is Sir who breaks our conversation. His bike hits the patio fence behind my friend. He nearly does the same, but manages to swing around land in the unoccupied wheel of our table.His eyes are darting and he announces " is this seat taken ladies?". His bald head is glistening in the evening light, he is breathing heavily forcing his T-shirt to fight for coverage of his gut.

Before we can answer his non- question he adjusts himself in the seat and continues " good, because I have some things to tell you about life.... I am still trying to figure it out. I am 51 and I am still trying to figure this shit out. You should get that in your heads". His voice quivers, and his lecture is over toned by the anxiety of a ticking clock.  I try to keep his eyes, I try to sympathize, but it just makes him more frantic. I feel strange, because that is how i feel too.

I start to imagine if this could be me. What if I don't figure out my next move... what happens to the people who are not successful... how does that happen in the first place?

He gets frustrated and tells me I cannot understand. He coils back into his alien shell and raises his voice.

Our server, previously uninterested in our section, comes over and confronts the man, telling him that us girls were having a good talk together, and if he could kindly evaporate then he should ( paraphrased).

He explodes, stopping all conversations in a 10 person radius. Claiming he was telling us things we needed to hear, telling her that life will pass her by. "Bitch!" he yells at her.... " aw.. .so pretty with your dreads and your eyes.... BITCH!". The man has now made, what modern society would call a "scene".

Chivalrous men from tables around start to make fun of the man, calling him stupid and an asshole. Telling him to get a life, telling him he should leave. Now hes the victim. All of a sudden the man seems so much smaller. He seems like the unlucky one in a game of monkey in the middle. His words mean nothing and he cannot hold on to us.

He stumbles to the street, yelling at the laughing crowd, yelling at lack of respect.  He turns back to myself and my friend, who have been silent since the beginning. " Weren't we having a nice conversation ladies??" his eyebrows rise  high enough to put some coverage on his scalp.

We cannot answer now. I smile sympathetically and nod.

Part of me wishes he could have stayed, that I could have been the one to listen to him. IT would have taken a while, but maybe if someone has the right kind of unexpected patience, he might be able to sort it all out.

No photos, not even a story. but this is the man of the week.