a sunday kind of love

I want a Sunday kind of love
A love to last past Saturday night
And I’d like to know
It’s more than love at first sight
I want a Sunday kind of love
—Louis Prima

Some people are born out of time, marooned in an era that doesn’t speak to their soul. I know, because I’m one of them.

I long for silver screen starlets, cool jazz and the styles of the Thirties and Forties—maybe that’s why I hang out at Madge’s Wonderbar Cafe, a bit of flotsam and jetsam Time washed up and forgot on a downtown Toronto street.

The Art Deco sign, black marble walls and curving windows seem curiously out of place, as are the nearby towering stone cathedrals, half-empty even at high noon.

Hank, who comes into the café Sunday evenings, tells me those cathedral bells used to make even mobsters stop and listen. He can recall the notorious Boyd Gang doing just that—stopping on the street, shaking their heads in awe at the angelic strains.

“Then they went out and robbed a bank.” Hank wheezes, his face filled with tears and eyes crinkling with wry humor at the memory of it.

“It must have been something to see,” I smile, and I bet it was.

I like to come here on Sunday, have a leisurely brunch and read the paper. Nobody seems to do that anymore, preferring to read the news on-line for free.

But Sundays are still special here, like back in the day when Toronto was called, among other things, The City of Churches.

I recall my grandfather telling me that on Sundays there wasn’t a car on the street. All the stores were closed and if they ran out of bread, he’d have to take the Bloor streetcar out to the big Canada Bread Bakery to get a loaf.

He said Sundays felt different then—not like now—and when he said it, somehow it reminded me of Dylan Thomas writing in Fern Hill, how the Sabbath rang slowly in the pebbles of the holy streams.

Forgive me the digression, but I’m an English Prof, and everything reminds me of a line.

I’m thirty-five and still unmarried. I know it sounds weird, but I’m waiting for the right girl, and to tell the truth, she hasn’t shown up yet.

Subject to change, I hope.

Anyway, I come to The Wonderbar partly out of loneliness and partly to imbibe the nostalgia of a bygone time.

There are days I walk in the doors and step back into the past—maybe eighty years or more.

Madge puts a vinyl Decca record on the turntable and the hiss of the static and the lilt of the music transports me back to how people lived before—before the War, before Rock and Roll and before life became so complicated that it lost its joy.

This tiny café is the island that time forgot.

I never see anybody walk in here with a laptop, iPad or even a smartphone. It would seem almost sacrilegious, and I’m sure Madge wouldn’t permit it.

The ambience is Thirties or Forties—Gatsby and Hemingway, and Zelda with a cigarette holder staring out at the rainy street—at least she would be doing that today.

It’s one of those misty April days when the world fades away, leaving you alone with your thoughts, the Thirties tunes, and a hazy grayness.

I often bring along a notepad and jot down some thoughts, especially on days like today when the foggy street is slowly drifting down towards the bay, carrying me along with it.

“Are you a writer?”

The girl in the booth opposite is looking at me, and I assume she’s talking to me. She reminds me of a gangster moll from a film noir.

“Excuse me, did you say something?”

She nods and dreamily blows some blue cigarette smoke up towards the ceiling.

I’m distracted by the retro gesture, and then, it hits me—Madge lets people smoke in here—I don’t know why, and she never gets hassled about it either.

“I asked if you were a writer,” the girl says in a soft drawl, that’s not quite southern, but not quite Canadian either.

“No, not a writer exactly,” I reply sheepishly, “unless you count pre-published ramblings and the occasional scholarly article.”

“Then, you’re from the University—that’s okay—students drop in now and then.”

“I’m not a student,” I tell her. What I don’t tell her is I get that a lot—I look younger than my years, and I sense in this case, it’s a liability.

She inhales lazily, sizing me up as she does. “Do you keep a journal?”

I blush, “Something like that—it’s more like random thoughts.”

She’s quite beautiful—long, honey-colored hair, a soft red V-neck sweater and matching lipstick.

Well, there’s something missing from this description. I left out her legs—deliberately, I guess—tried not to notice them tilted elegantly to the side beneath her beige skirt.

There’s also a hint of a smirk on her face and I realize I failed the test. It’s like telling yourself not to look, and of course, you do. This girl has been around though and I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life up until now.

Madge comes by and drops a coffee. She eyes the girl and smiles in a motherly way.

“By the way, Hon—that creep that was bothering you is gone. Funny, he usually just hits on gang girls when their boyfriends are in jail. What a low-life! I’ll call you a cab later, if you want.”

“Thanks, Madge, but I’ll be fine.”

When she’s gone, I can’t resist asking, “has someone been bothering you, Miss?”

She looks amused as if her younger brother offered to defend her honor.

“My name's Cyn, and I’m okay, but thanks for asking.”

“You’re welcome—and by the way, I’m Paul—Paul Sanders.”

“Nice to meet you, Paul,” she says in a strange, singsong voice that borders on mocking.

I’m definitely striking out with this one. Welcome to my world, I muse.

A song comes on the phonograph and she gets this far away look in her eyes. I feel myself drawn to her as if being pulled into her world.

I see a tall building. She lives in the penthouse with a view of the lake. I can hear a distant foghorn—and then suddenly, the scene dissolves, and I’m back in the café staring at her lovely face.

“You daydream. Don’t you? Just like me.”

It was no daydream, but I nod anyway, pondering silently what the vision might mean.

She finishes her coffee and puts on her raincoat.

I leave money on the table, hoping to walk out with her.

“You finished too?” she smiles, “Going my way?”

“What way is that?” I ask.

“I live in an apartment down by the lake. You can walk me home, if you like.”

My heart races, but I feign nonchalance. “I’d like that,” I tell her, and I do, with all my heart.

We walk down Yonge Street, stopping occasionally to look in windows, pausing outside a small art gallery and admiring a few canvases on display.

“I love painting,” she enthuses, “my favorite artist is Chagall—do you know his work?”

“I do. My favorite painting is La Mariée (The Bride)”

She looks at me curiously. “Strange. I don’t know that work.”

“It’s lovely,” I tell her, “a bridal couple floating over a town in a blue sky with a goat playing fiddle.”

“Of course, goats play fiddle when you’re in love,” she laughs.

When we reach her apartment, she invites me up. It has a magnificent view of the lake, or so she informs me, but unfortunately, today it’s shrouded in mist.

There are several Chagall reproductions hanging on her walls. We drink champagne and talk until it’s dark.

I’m tipsy, definitely light-headed— not much of a drinker—two drinks are my limit, and I’ve gone well beyond that.

“I think you should stay,” she cautions, when I bump into the couch on the way back from the washroom.

I agree. There’s no way I’m going to try navigating traffic to get back home.

I remember her getting me to lie down on her couch and placing a blanket over me.

I sleep fitfully, dreaming of the two of us, embracing and flying above the town.

When I awaken, I’m on a cold concrete floor in a dilapidated high rise. I panic as I look around at a building obviously in the process of demolition.

Somehow, I find a stairwell and make my way down eighteen floors to the ground.

I come out onto a muddy parking lot filled with construction machinery. A foreman in a yellow hard hat is shocked to see me and gruffly orders me off the site.

I can’t piece together the events of the preceding day. I dimly remember walking down Yonge Street, but after that, everything is vague, as if wrapped in a haze.

I go back to my apartment and sleep for two days.

When I finally feel somewhat normal again, I venture back to The Wonderbar Café, only to find it closed. A note on the door says it’s slated for demolition—a condo tower to be built on the site and completed in May 2018.

Nothing about my adventure with the girl makes sense. And even after a month passes, I’m still in a daze.

I don’t know if Cyn were even real, or where the world is hiding her. Sometimes, at night, the injustice of losing her seems very real, especially around 3 am.

My writing’s changed too. No more random thoughts or journaling. I’m writing poems.

The other night when I couldn’t sleep, I sat at my old oak table writing a poem for Cyn. Somehow, it seems appropriate.

Thoughts on Lonely Nights

If only we could be
you and I,
as in a fable
by Chagall,
where horses and cows
play fiddle and fly,
and love outlasts
the longest of nights.

image credit: https://goo.gl/images/BjGYBN