“TIMBER!” I shouted as Griselda literally knocked Brain over, thereby confirming I had totally and now completely fallen in love.
I know we all share many of life’s experiences and it probably sounds like one of the oddest things a man in his sixties could say, but there I stood in the belly of a huge parking structure in a foreign country, reduced to a quivering mass, completely overwhelmed by another man’s genuine feelings of affection for me for the first time in my life.
Even though speechless, I couldn’t help noticing that just as before when flush with emotion a river of positive feeling came flowing forth from Jonny. This time, however, I wasn’t just a casual observer, I was standing midstream and the river was at full flood.
We got in the car and before we even left the parking garage we both began chattering away like mad. Once at our hotel and after a hot meal, my in-flight ham and cheese had worn off by this time, we headed back to the room.
I realize a lot of people reading this story are, at the very least, curious about, if not downright impatient to precisely and explicitly know what the two of us burly, bearded guys did together…alone…at night…in a hotel room.
For that you’ll just have to wait for the book version of this story.
I can tell you we fervently thrust ourselves into renewing our acquaintanceship, so much so that the phrase, “I think I broke a hip” was used on more than one occasion.
Friday morning, we were up at the crack of ten and off for breakfast, where I was promptly introduced to that hardly rare Canadian treat known as a visit to Tim Horton’s. I was even presented with my first box of Timbits to enjoy throughout the remainder of the day.
And what a day it was. The weather couldn’t have been better. It was warm, in the upper 70s to low 80s, mostly sunny with flocks of big billowy clouds drifting across Lake Ontario. Not only had I fallen in love with a Canadian but I fell in love with the city of Toronto that day as well.
We arrived downtown, parked the car, and headed for our first touristy stop, the CN Tower. The mostly clear skies afforded us a view of nearly the entire GTA [Greater Toronto Area], we could even make out the skyline of Hamilton, Ontario, Jon’s home base when not at school, some 43-odd miles away.
After a lake-front lunch, we began touring different downtown districts and various Toronto neighborhoods such as the Gay Village at Church and Wellesley.
Late that afternoon, we found ourselves at a water treatment plant on the shores of Lake Ontario at the end of a miles-long boardwalk. We headed back to town along the boardwalk talking about nothing and everything special to us, stopping only occasionally, as we had throughout the day, for selfies of the two of us together.
By the end of the first day the Health app on my iPhone said we’d walked some 15-odd miles, and with the aches and pain in our feet and legs neither of us felt like arguing about the precise distance.
I have never been more rapturously, blissfully, deliriously happy as I was that day, with the exception of the following two days.
After a hearty breakfast Saturday morning, we headed back to downtown Toronto and spent several hours touring the Royal Ontario Museum and followed that with a walk through Queen’s Park (“how appropriate,” Brain chuckled).
Our next long march and excursion was a hike to Kensington Market, a partly outdoor market in one of Toronto’s older neighborhoods, where we leisurely window shopped the remainder of the afternoon away.
For dinner Saturday evening Jon had a surprise for me, a search for the location of “the best poutine,” in Toronto. Unfortunately by the time we got to Toronto’s number one rated poutinerie it had closed for the day, so we hiked for another 20 minutes until we made it to Poutini’s House of Poutine, then rated the No. 2 poutinerie in Toronto.
Often referred to as Canada’s National Dish, I have to tell you it was the kind of hot, cheap, fast food, that, were I still in my 20s and stumbled across it after a night of drinking and clubbing, I probably would have loved.
Made with freshly cut Prince Edward Island potatoes and chunks of real dairy cheese curds, I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t noticed that it was smothered in a hot brown slurry straight from an institutional food service size can of Heinz brown gravy.
Exhausted after a second day of walking nearly another 14 miles we turned in early. In addition to being exhausted, we wanted to get an early start the next morning before making the drive out to Hamilton where I would finally meet, in person, my second, new best Canadian friend, Brodie.
High on life as ever, I awoke first early the next morning. It took a bit longer for Mr. Breithaupt to rise, though, at the moment, at least, shine seemed to be out of the question.
“I don’t know,” Jonny said forcing himself to sit up. “I just didn’t sleep well last night.”
“I’ll say you didn’t,” after getting a look at him. “What happened to your eyes?”
His eyes looked tired, and puffy, his eyelids were wrinkled, and there were bags under them the size of steamer trunks.
“It must be from all the dust and pollen in the air yesterday,” he said rising slowly from the bed. “The air was pretty full of it and the air blasting out of that thing all night didn’t help.” He pointed up at the air conditioning vent that was located just above his side of the bed.
I had great fun at breakfast teasing him about how this grey bearded old American had walked a powerful thirty something weightlifter into the ground. I even managed to sneak a couple of shots of his haggard face and weary eyes from across the breakfast table.
It took more than a few cups of coffee to get him going.
By the time we reached Brodie’s place Jonny was once again beginning to look and sound like the jovial, wonder loving teddy bear I’d come to love being with.
Brodie and I had bonded over the internet that summer. He’d experienced his share of ups and downs; paternal abandonment, taking care of an ailing mother, a severe mental and physical trauma at the hands of an off duty officer of the law, all while dealing with a really high IQ and being yanked out of a school for the gifted to fill the void left by his father, thereby losing, as I had, help in mastering a mind prone to manic bouts of overthinking.
I saw so much of myself in him at that age that even though we had a lot of fun texting and chatting with one another, my heart still ached for him from time to time as he struggled with the demons life had bestowed upon him.
I got a quick tour of Hamilton with Jon and Brodie. Like Pittsburgh in my home state of Pennsylvania, it had once been the steel manufacturing heart of Canadian industry. Unlike Pittsburg, however, it was only in the early stages of rediscovering and remaking itself.
After my tour, we hit a premium burger haus, ate way too much, then returned to Brodie’s place, where we spent a couple of hours in his mother’s beautiful backyard garden digesting what felt like an entire side of beef.
Before I knew it Jon and I were back in our hotel room and the most lovely weekend of my life was coming to a close. Although my flight back to Palm Springs didn’t leave until Tuesday, Jon had to leave Toronto sometime after breakfast on Monday to return to Hamilton for a family commitment. This would be our last night together for the foreseeable future.
We were both nearly totally exhausted from our whirlwind weekend together we settled in for a long restful night of cuddling.
Like a scene out of movie, as I closed my eyes I could see Griselda dressed in a light airy skirt, as blissfully intoxicated as ever I’d seen anyone waltzing about a beautiful ballroom open to the night breeze. Much to my amazement she was skillfully accompanied by Brain looking dashing in a linen shirt and pants. They were as lovely a couple as ever to be seen on a dance floor.
I fell fast asleep without a care in the world and nary a thought in my head of what to do next.
Edited by
Kenneth Larsen
Next Up: Iceberg Dead Ahead
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