Lord of the Barflies
Dr. Lenny and Mr. Chris
It’s not uncommon for me to have a few drinks with my psychiatrist after a session. Truth be told, it would be uncommon if we didn’t. My life has reached a point where there must be a strict regiment I can adhere to. I follow these patterns in order to maintain an essential personal balance along the rocky road that is my life’s journey. Initially I was hoping that this path would lead to some kind of cosmic understanding and eternal bliss. Currently the life train has me dropped in a place called Jaded Contentment for what seems like a rather lengthy stopover. It’s actually not a bad place. I’m just cautiously optimistic that it will pale in comparison to this Eternal Bliss destination that I’ve heard so much about.
Balance is also very important to me because I’m a functioning alcoholic who is both old and fat as well. Declining eyesight seems to come with maturity, so combine that with a fat drunk guy and you’ve got the perfect storm for a potential spill.
Dr. Leonard Timleck, or Lenny as I affectionately refer to him, is much more slight than me. While I am naturally a bigger man in physical stature anyhow, I’m still pretty sure that Lenny has shrunk a bit over the years. We’ve known one another for well over 50 years. When we first met he was a friend of my older brothers’ and back then he was actually bigger than me so maybe it’s a psychological thing. Considering he is well schooled in that specific field, I could naturally ask him about that but I already know he’ll deny it with a great passion. Melodramatic, as if he’s been struck to the very core of his soul by such a baseless accusation.
“Sure. It’s not uncommon to shrink a bit over time.” He would start confidently, quickly adding,”But not me! Heavens no. I’m still exactly the same height and weight that I was at 28.”
Of course that’s a lie. Or an exaggeration if you will. Hopefully he’s not a liar because he does affirm both our friendship and my sanity and I have chosen to trust his opinion in that regard. Although I would pay good money to see him have to testify under oath in a court of law that he’s still currently the same height and weight that he was almost 40 years ago. While we both attended the same Catholic school, he has stayed loyal to the doctrine and I have not. Although I can still be susceptible to Christian guilt.
We were first introduced sometime during the 1960’s in the suburb of Scarborough, Toronto. Our families resided in the same neighbourhood and he attended that same aforementioned Catholic grade school as my two older brothers. I was too young to attend school at that time and so I just naturally assumed that a family member would’ve made mention of me. I imagine it would have dawned on him anyways regardless because I was always just around anyways. I certainly have very little recollection of those days.
I do recall my family trading in the suburban city life of Scarborough for the country experience and formally beginning my education at a public school in Sutton, Ontario. I can also remember with great clarity what a monumental disaster that barter proved to be.
As it turned out, my family ended up going back to Scarborough in the early 1970s. Only this time, instead of the house in the suburbs, we lived in a nearby apartment complex just across those metaphorical railroad tracks. Another noticeable change was the fact that one of the parents was absent in our inglorious return.
It had become very apparent to my brothers and I that Mom and Dad didn’t really like each other anymore. I’m pretty sure both parties would concur that was true and probably a substantial understatement. It might not even be a stretch to suggest that there was a vociferous contempt that existed between them. (Today I don’t doubt that both parents loved their children. I just think that the passionate disdain that they had for one another was greater even still).
It was while my brothers and I were living with our father in that Scarborough apartment complex that I first remember meeting Lenny. Dad was a captain with the North York fire department in those days. Certainly it couldn’t have been the easiest job to do on a daily basis when you consider that the distinct possibility of a fiery death was always looming in the background along with an impending divorce and the stress of raising three boys. Christ! It’s no wonder he drank a lot.
It was ideal for us though. We were 9, 12, and 14 years old respectively and certainly coming of age at that time. Sure we missed our Mother but we loved that freedom of having no disciplinarian around. Our Grandmother gave babysitting the ol’ college try but that lasted all of two days before she ran screaming. This, after actually getting to know her son’s children a little better. Particularly the eldest of the three, whose psychopathic tendencies seemed very clear to everyone except his parents. As one of his surviving brothers I can attest to this.
Being a captain with the big city fire department meant that you would be away from your family home for extended periods of time. It’s just a sad fact that there is no set timeline for emergency responders. Misfortune keeps its own hours. Awkward for a single parent yet awesome for prepubescent boys.
We used to have parties with the other kids from school when Dad would be away working nights. Most of the attendees were friends of my older brothers from school. There was an unspoken rule that if you came to the parties then you would have to help clean before you left. In an adult free zone where alcohol and marijuana were the incentive, other parents would’ve been shocked to learn how remarkably efficient their kids could actually be at tidying up. While under the influence no less!
This is where I fondly remember my introduction to Lenny. Most of the kids
at these parties came from dysfunctional families such as ours. Responsible parents would never let their children venture into our neighbourhood, particularly after dark. The fact that we attended a Catholic school and our parents were divorced also didn’t sit too well with the “faithful”. We would have been considered pariahs at that time if we were aware of what that word meant. Of course nobody would want to explain the meaning of pariah to us due to the fear of getting the shit kicked out of them. ( You can’t forget that Dad left the psychopath in charge!)
Lenny was among the few that didn’t come from an actual broken family. His family lived in a house situated beside the church and directly across from the Catholic school that bore the same name, St. Boniface. He was one of the lesser known saints. He’s best remembered for chopping down a sacred oak tree that had been previously dedicated to Thor. This was to impress upon people the strength that faith in Christianity could provide. ( Big Business should consider this defence as a way to placate the angry environmentalists. Surely they’ll understand that you’re cutting down the Amazon rain forest in the name of Jesus.)
As it turned out Lenny’s family was just as dysfunctional as our own but his parents were staunch Catholics and therefore they could not broach the subject of divorce. Like many other married couples they decided it would be better to just live a lie for the sake of their offspring. Unlike many of today’s professional athletes, they begrudgingly honoured their contract even when the market shifted.
The primary selling point of our house parties was the curious blend of intoxicants and raging hormones. It was definitely a form of education that you would never get from an afternoon with Mr. Snodgrass in science class. It was like watching an “R” rated movie instead of the good old Disney classic that was suggested. There might be swearing and the boys all secretly hoped to see some tits. For better or worse, you were making your own conscious decision to disobey authority. You were going to be learning a valuable lesson about accountability either way it went.
Mom and Dad can’t be there when you decide to get drunk for the first time and lose your virginity. Rebellion has to be a collective effort. You have to trust that your friends really do have your best interest at heart. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Regardless, the final result is hugely informative and you are definitely left wiser for the wear. Future parenting skills are developed in direct correlation to the impulsive teenage decisions that we made in the past. That’s how we became adults.
Lenny was always at the centre of these parties because he was a gifted singer and guitar player and could entertain us with all of the latest classic rock hits of the times. Mind you it wasn’t referred to as classic rock back then either, it was just rock. Even the term “rock and roll” seemed kind of corny and dated in the 1970s, evoking visions of Sha-na-na or Chuck Berry from back in our parents’ heyday.
I found writing stories to be my passion at that early age. I had a little desk that was crammed into a walk-in closet and I called that my “office”. It has been pointed out to me by others, including my psychiatrist none other than Lenny himself, that writing fantastical stories in a walk-in closet was probably a subconscious effort to escape from the trauma of my parents divorce and the uncertainty of this new world that I was expected to navigate. I think it’s more about the attention that I got in school from my teachers and fellow students. That was my earliest attempt at being relevant. If my psychiatrist were Sigmund Freud instead of Lenny then I’m sure he would suggest that I was secretly hoping that writing would lead me to seeing more tits. I can’t comment either way although that was definitely the case with music.
I had always liked music to begin with and I credit my Mother with introducing us to The Beatles, Woodstock, and the countless catchy tunes that were to be found on the bi-monthly K-tel records that she would get us. I was also beginning to take an interest in girls during this particular time and I couldn’t help but notice how much attention and respect Lenny was able to attain through his guitar performances. It seemed like a no-brainer to me!
I figured that if I too could learn how to play “Stairway to Heaven” then I would surely be able to convince one of these older girls to consider my pre-pubescent hairless body for sex. It did take a while but eventually my scheme came to fruition a couple years after the arrival of my pubic hair.
It took close to 45 years before I finally realized that I might have been a much better guitar player if I’d studied more instead of being so sidetracked by the sexual adventures that being a musician could provide. There’s also a very real possibility that I might’ve still been married and landed a more illustrious career than that of bar manager had I not spent so much time obsessing about my eventual big break. Oh well, quite literally, them’s the actual breaks!
Lenny was also a gifted writer with a very analytical mind. We became especially close friends in the early 80s when we lived nearby in downtown Toronto. We both had wives then, having both been recently married around the same time. Upon reflection, there is reckless abandon that can sometimes accompany a passion for art. That is probably the very reason that neither one of us was able to stay married.
By the 90s we began to drift apart as family life tends to dictate. Sharon, who was my wife at the time, had given birth to two baby girls in 1986 and 1988. Initially, we had moved to the suburbs from downtown in order to raise our kids but it wasn’t long after that we left Toronto altogether. Back then, after a young couple had children, buying a house was a foregone conclusion and so we moved to Kitchener and bought an affordable home. Sadly, I always think of Kitchener as the city where our love came to die. And die, it did. By 1995 we were done.
In 1996 I was left basically wallowing in a sea of self pity and alcoholism. Despite this, my eldest daughter, who was 10 years old at the time, insisted on moving into a shabby apartment complex with me. It certainly does beg the question of who raised who because I definitely was not in the running for any “Father of the Year” awards. Looking back however, I do think Melissa was able to experience some of the same freedoms that I had in my own childhood because of some of my shortcomings. Not unlike my own upbringing, it was an abstract addition by subtraction.
It has always irked me when I hear parents claiming that they only want their kids to have a better childhood than they themselves had. Like nobody else ever had a happy childhood except me. Despite some of the hardships that I may have had to endure in my own upbringing, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world! I had such a wonderful time and I’ll always be tremendously grateful for the memories and the lessons learned along the way.
Melissa is 39 years old herself now and she has done incredibly well for herself despite my questionable parenting techniques. Although we are extremely close, I am constantly reminded by the natural fact that her Mother is my ex-wife. Strangely, it is particularly true when we are in disagreement. If it gets heated enough, and it can get heated, she seems to take a sadistic pleasure in reminding me of my shortcomings as a father.
“Remember that time back in 1989 when you got drunk and peed on my toy kitchen set?” is one example.
The sad truth is I vaguely remember that. I had been reading her a story and had fallen asleep next to her in the bed. When I awoke a couple hours later I must’ve drunkenly thought I was in my own bedroom which included an ensuite bathroom..The rest is history as they say. The type of history that you’re actually hoping the nimrod woke culture would cancel. I guess there’s something to be said for the blackout drunks. They literally don’t actually remember these things!
My youngest daughter Crystal died in 2020 and that was a terrible blow for both her Mother and sister as well as myself. She was 32 years old and the timing of her death just happened to eerily coincide with all the other shitty events of the year 2020. A year that certainly is not fondly remembered by most. You had Donald Trump, you had Covid-19 and the ensuing lockdowns, you had the police brutality that sparked race riots. It almost seemed inevitable that a personal tragedy would headline such an unbelievably horrible year. For the morbidly curious, no, she did not directly die from the coronavirus although I do believe that it did indirectly lead to her unfortunate demise.
While I was as devastated as I imagine any parent would be, I was able to hold it together for the sake of my daughter and the three grandkids. I firmly believe that it is acceptable for a man to cry but I also believe you have to contain your grief with a brave face for the women and children. If they feel what you’re feeling inside then they are indeed crippled with anguish and might need some support from you. I tried to be strong for them.
Melissa kept urging me to get some grief counseling and I was insistent that I would be okay. But the universe had different ideas and it presented me with the strangest of coincidences. My brother Jim had passed along my cell phone number and email address to Lenny a couple of years earlier and I thought nothing of it. While I always loved him and missed him dearly, it had been close to twenty five years since we had last spoken.
Whether it be out of embarrassment or thoughtful consideration, I had long ago ceased communication with my old friends from Toronto and they had stopped trying to reach out to me. I was already divorced at the time and most of these people were just getting married and having children. During the darkest days of my alcoholic spiral I certainly didn’t want to be around newlyweds and babies. Like a conscientious leper, I chose to stay far away and fully embrace the barfly lifestyle. Which I achieved with great aplomb!
So it was with great surprise when I answered my phone and heard Lenny’s familiar tone. He immediately asked about Crystal’s death which was ,of course, the hot topic at the time.
“I heard about Crystal, buddy. I’m so sorry.” He began.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Lenny.” I quickly responded, perhaps sounding almost nonchalantly, “It’s not like you killed her.”
He laughed uneasily and stammered, “No..I mean, that’s an inevitable burden to bear. I can’t imagine how you and Shar feel.”
I quickly assuaged his discomfort and told him that I was doing fine under the circumstances. I asked how he was doing and what he’d been up to. I wasn’t that surprised to find out that he had just gotten divorced himself.
“Pal, you and I have both drunk a lot of beer and self-mutilated our souls in the name of art. I am actually more surprised to find out that you and Marian were able to last even this long.”
“No, no, not Marian.” He chortled heartily, “Christ, we broke up back in the mid-nineties. This is with Renate, my second wife.”
“What is with you poor bastards?” I couldn’t resist teasing him ”Don’t you know when to quit? My brother, my father and now you too. It’s like a fucking epidemic..”
I was flat out astonished when he revealed that he had been a practising psychiatrist for the last twenty years. I would have figured that my brother might’ve mentioned that to me somewhere in that span of twenty five years and yet I had not heard anything about it. Mind you, my brother Jim is a chronic pot smoker and his own memory is sketchy to say the least.
Lenny was such a gifted musician and storyteller whose destiny seemed so clearly evident to everybody who knew him. It didn’t seem to make any sense to me initially but it did make sense once we became reacquainted.
An artist is a particular breed of person. Their forte just happens to be creating something out of nothing. A blank canvas became “The Mona Lisa” and empty pages evolved into the likes of “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet”. A stoney silence was magically transposed into a heartfelt melodic expression. These remarkable metamorphoses didn’t just randomly appear. Somebody had to create them.
Buried deep in the human psyche there are emotions and thoughts swirling about in a sea of imagination. It’s not a specific thing that we can actually see, hear , smell ,or taste. It’s not considered one of the five senses because you can’t physically touch it but you certainly can feel it. It is the artist who is able to share their invisible feelings with others by making it meet the criterion of the five senses. Where once you could not see a thought, now you can!
Unfortunately, somewhere down the line, the true artists were replaced by the con artists. The con artists are the ones that are generally responsible for creating something very similar to what already existed in the first place, having been initially created by a true artist. In regards to writing, I’m of the belief that these are the opportunists responsible for unnecessary sequels. In these cases the concept of art gives way to greed, an opportunity to deprive stupid people of even more of their money. The very concept of original thought is an oft debated topic by critical thinkers who actually save money without even trying. They don’t spend money unnecessarily on sequels because of the time required in thinking about such things.
I suspect that Lenny was drawn to psychiatry because he was fascinated with the exploration of other people’s “invisible feelings” having plumbed the depths of his own inner psyche for all those years prior. It would actually make sense, especially if he had discovered himself leaning to the nay side of the original thought argument.
I had always respected Lenny’s opinions regardless of the topic. I had made that decision long ago, based on my own limited critical thinking. While we didn’t always agree on everything we were both willing to consider the other’s position because past experience often dictates perception. To both of us that was a literal no-brainer!
I was just getting over the shock of Lenny’s career path when I was astonished yet again by another revelation. He’d recently moved to Kitchener from Toronto as well.
“It just made financial sense to me.” He answered matter-of-factly, “And I’d like to put some distance between my past and the future that I’m hoping for.”
It was a perfect answer. Succinct and yet analytical, as I’d known Lenny to be. He was basically telling me that living in Toronto had become a downer with the unpleasant memories that it invoked and a move might prove invigorating. That’s kind of what Kitchener became for me at the height of my spiral. At one time I was hoping a return to Toronto would prove beneficial to me but I now realize that was an idea based on a nostalgic naivete. I had long since adopted Kitchener as my hometown. And I was glad for it.
It was inevitable that the conversation would somehow wind its way back to Crystal’s death. When it’s still fresh it’s naturally going to come up when reacquainting with an old friend. It’s not like you can just ask about their family casually without inwardly already knowing some of the answer already. My own Father is 93 years old and still asks, “So how are the girls?”.
“Well one is in better shape than the other.” I used to glibly reply.
I don’t do that anymore because, at this age, I can’t expect him to recall much. Although he does remember that my children were of the female variety. He also has a tendency to ask, “So how’s the wife?” a full thirty years after our divorce. In that respect you have to take it for what it is and appreciate his effort to engage in small talk.
In this specific instance the Universe revealed an agenda to me. What we may have considered coincidences seemed suddenly less coincidental in nature. Instead of just random occurrences they seemed to be part of a methodical grand scheme. A very deliberate act that could only occur if the fates were to be aligned by a mighty force.
It was that very phone call that led me to the office of my old friend, Dr. Leonard Timleck.