August Madness

I’m not sure why I asked it. I didn’t think, I just blurted it out, “What am I doing this for?” As though I were partaking in an activity of some sort, but I wasn’t really doing anything. Merely a stranger sitting and sipping a pint among others posted up at the bar, facing a basketball game on televisions lining the wall like another row of patrons staring back at us. I don’t even like basketball. And he was just another stranger, minding his own business, posted up at the bar. This may be the sanctuary of small talk, but was this appropriate to ask?

“Doing what for?” he asked. A reasonable question, even if “for” rang more like “fir”.

“Any of it. What am I doing any of this for?” His look grew severe as options for response ping-ponged around his head with the dulled tapping of a rubber-coated paddle. Is this man serious? Is this man crazy? Why does this always happen to me? More reasonable questions. Hell, part of me was asking the same.

“You alright, brother?” He said. My gut responded with a laugh. What else could I do? I could just say no. Which would have been true. Existence seems so brutal these days. Some people suck the marrow out of life, but here I was alone at a bar, drinking the nectar of amnesia. So instead I laughed. And then said, “No.”

Further context sat upon my tongue like a held breath. I could have offered any details of the heavy burden of living, bolted permanently to my shoulders, my heart, my soul, but it felt vital to hold for response. Again, the man-of-bar, of no relation or relationship to me, pondered the queer tension that sat beside him.

“I get that,” he said, then settled back into the soothing quiver of the TV. Man, what a response. Just enough to sedate my concerns and leave me feeling comfortably heard. This was not his first time posted up at the bar with strangers, I can tell you that. So I too settled back into my chair and gazed upon the brash, flickering fantasy of Sportsnet. I really don’t care for basketball.

Then a foul was whistled and the man-of-bar snickered grumpily, “What are they doing this for?”

I joined in the chuckle that followed, not understanding what it was in regard to, but chuckling anyway as it wasn’t my first time posted up at a bar with strangers either. Normally, I’d have enough knowledge of a sport to small-talk my way into a second pint, but… Basketball.

He went on to talk about someone in the paint putting up rebounds better than most in the league, words I knew from my time in the paint putting up rebounds in high school, and I nodded and laughed at the jokes that followed, each sip bringing me closer to an empty glass.

With only a quarter pint left before appropriate to ask for another, a friend of his pulled up. A sporting man to be sure, broad-shouldered and clean-shaven. They engaged in a bro hug and tucked into conversation all their own. The man-of-bar said excuse me, or maybe just looked at me in that sort of excuse me way, and turned to his friend, who knew a lot more about basketball than I. Their conversation was immediate, engaged, excitable even. I could sense a jealousy clawing at me, or perhaps grief. Mourning a time when my friends would step up to the bar for conversation, sport, and drink, with time and money at their disposal, without children, engagements, or responsibilities. When we gathered in groups rather than grouped in homely pairs and partnerships, to bed early, to awake early, void of that hangover tinge only a few pints offer. The anxiety of middle age has proved an annoyingly persistent companion on this steady trudge toward the grave. What am I even doing this for? Am I simply drowning whatever emotional insecurity I carry in this bubbly vice? Come on, Scooter. You already know the answer.

Then a great chuckle erupted from the man-of-bar and his strapping friend. A hearty belly laugh of mutually engaged understanding. He turned to me and nudged with an elbow. “See, they fucking did it again. Didn’t I say so?” I nodded along with a chuckle of my own as the square-jawed newcomer glanced my way as though to confirm that his friend was not a liar.

“You surely fucking did,” I said, to great fervour from the pair. Man, what a response. A man-of-bar kind of quip. Others watching the game, sidled up to the bar, chuckled in their own way and in their own world, leaving me basking in the brief glow of social validation. A moment of relevance worthy of appreciation.

I settled back into my loneliness with the comfort of a traveller waiting for his train. By the time my pint was empty enough to ask for another, I was again lost in the gnawing interrogation: What am I doing this for? What is the point of this ritual of drink and feel nothing?

This line of query was enough for me to pause when the barkeep asked if I wanted another. But then they said those magic words: “There’s a beer special for the games.”

Perhaps I’ve been unduly dismissive of basketball’s virtues.