Out of Time Madge’s Wonderbar Cafe

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.

It’s a day filled with anticipation that something wonderful is about to happen, and in the future when I look back upon this moment, I know I'm going to still be thrilled.

© 2018, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

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