Call Tyrone... Everything Will Be Alright

Twenty years old, my first bartending job was at a restaurant on Bloor Street. This is a Toronto street currently riddled with branding designated for malnourished sheep with bovine extracts lovingly pierced into brows. It is also a runway for vulgar amounts of war waged blingmobiles named synonymously with bombilate blow jobs.

The restaurant was the Bermuda Onion. The Onion for short. Purple neon. Blue-black walls. A decorative stuffed Marlin fish on the back wall. It was the last gasp of the 80's, where there was no shortage of cash; where there was a real desire to show it off.

I worked with Tyrone. Calm. Ever present confident smile. Piercing green eyes that never failed to get him laid. I was engaged at the time, and also never really looked at Tyrone in that way. I was his protegé. Master and apprentice.

Over a decade later I saw him again for the first time in many years on the streetcar. In my neighbourhood. Walking through the center aisle, Tyrone was at the back of the car. The half smile ever present; green eyes yo-yo-ing to take all of me in... over and over.

The Comrade: TYRONE!
Tyrone: Oh my God! It's you! It's been, like, 14 years!
The Comrade: Yeah! ... Hey! Were you just checking me out?
Tyrone: No!
The Comrade: Dude, I saw the up and down action with the eyes.
Tyrone: Okay, maybe a little.
The Comrade: I'm your buddy!
Tyrone: I didn't know it was you!

At the Onion, Tyrone and I had worked the circular bar like a couple of ball bearings in a game of roulette. This was when Ty had speed. I learned that a few years later he'd been in a car accident.

He had veered past the median onto oncoming traffic.
No one was injured.
There was no alcohol in his blood stream.
He had his license revoked.
He still had to make payments on an impounded car.
He went to jail for 2 months.

Tyrone, though light skinned, is a black man.

These days he is the right shade of brown; more than likely because he can't wrap his tongue around the word jihad.

2 months

When he got out of the pen he asked me what I'd done for the last 2 months.

The Comrade: Well, you know, this and that. Nothing much.
Tyrone: But 2 months! That's a long time.

2 months is a long time, especially when you've got nothing but time to think about things.

These days Tyrone is a film and television editor. He's got an excellent workspace that encourages creativity and comfort. He loves going in, working up to 16 hours a day, whether there's anything to do or not. He'd putter around for a bit or sometimes dash off to see a movie in the afternoon. He'd already taken the trouble of showering. Since he'd made it to work, there was no reason for him to go home. He said there wasn't anything for him to do there anyway.

The Comrade: What do you mean?
Tyrone: All I'd do is sit around and watch TV.
The Comrade: Really?
Tyrone: I guess I could go shopping.
The Comrade: [sigh]

I'd reminded him about his 2 months in jail and the words he spoke to me after getting out.

Tyrone: Yeah, but things happen all the time. Every moment you're alive, something happens.


At his editing suite he sits. He turns off the volume from the 5.1 Bose surround sound system; picks up the phone; dials a number.

Tyrone: Hi. It's me. I'm just leaving now.... Yep. We're just going out for something to eat, then I'm going home.... K.... Bye.
The Comrade: What the hell was that?
Tyrone: It's my girlfriend. She worries about me. I don't know why. Actually, I do. She's a girl. Guys are guys and girls are girls. We can't help it.

The Comrade simultaneously thinks this behaviour is sickening and sweet at the same time. Now that she has a boyfriend, all the old pulls of caring for someone have come back. They haunt her. She thought she was past this. Now, all she wants to do is talk to him.

And they fight
And they fix
And they fight
And they fix
And they say sweet things
And eventually they fall asleep in each other's arms
In their minds

Tyrone's the only one I know who is on relationship terra firma right now.

The Applier is juggling too many girls. 3 inanimate objects is a good number to juggle. 3 women, especially when one of them is nuts and a certifiable nympho wreaks havoc on certain parts.

Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend, tried to give him some advice when the Applier earnestly asked how he could be rid of her without being an asshole about the whole thing.

Ack: Tell her, "I need my space, baby."

In my mind, all I heard was that phrase spoken without the use of a comma.
I need my Spacebaby.

The Nutty Nympho has left the poor Applier with a "shredded dick".


Poor Ack. Things were seemingly going really well with the Big Girl, from upstairs, with the floppy feet. They went dancing. She wasn't appalled nor turned off by the Bob Fosse dance moves. They made out. There was some biting of Big Girl's bum. After a week, it seemed she had some reservations. She'd changed her mind. She needed her space, baby.

Ack's hopeful, though. He's all about playing the field now. I talked to him last night about the love in my life and he's really happy for me.

Poor Fatty. He's fallen for a girl who has been living with an emotionally abusive idiot for a couple of years now. She likes her apartment too much. Ugh. I told him there are marvellous apartments all over the city. He knows. This hurts him because she is the first girl he can actually invision having children with.

What can you do? We can't help who we fall in love with. We don't really choose them. Not really. It just happens. Half the time we can't explain why we love them.

Some things can't be intellectualized.
Not with our little pea brains.

Something just happens every single minute we're alive.