Walking down Broadview the other day, I passed by the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffalo, a sturdy, little brick building that kind of resembles a church. I’ve long wondered what mysteries dwelled within.
I pulled on the front door and entered.
Up a few stairs and down a very short hallway was the sort of make shift bar you’d see in any legion hall. It smelled of the past and was painted the colour of a locker room in a hockey rink. On the wall above the dartboards were buffalo heads, antlers and rules. The place was empty but for a middle-aged woman who sat at one of the cafeteria-styled tables reading the Toronto Sun. The radio behind the bar played straight-ahead Canadian rock, the sort of stuff you’d hear from a motorboat as it slapped by a cottage dock.
The woman was very friendly and helpful, answering any questions I had, explaining the playing cards I saw jammed between the tiles on the ceiling were for “Spot Dances.” When the dance ended, if you were standing beneath the Jack of Spades you got a free drink. I imagined that, the sheepish pleasure and the round of applause, as two elderly people, maybe a little breathless still, smiled over to the bar, still lucky after all these years.
Just a little bit further down the street is a Veterans Club. Passing close to the front door I can hear laughter from the interior. The door opens, and two men emerge, coughing, rasping, gigglin they hit the stoop for a smoke. One looks over his shoulder at the other and says, “I know you planned it that way,” and then they both start laughing again.
At the Dark Horse a well-maintained and pretty blonde woman waits for her order. She has Burberry in her hair and Coach on her feet, and somehow, from the way she’s comporting herself, she’s projecting a sense of ownership.
As she’s paying for her coffee with her debit card she makes a mistake and leaps back from the little machine as if she’s just received an electrical shock. She emits a little yelp, waves her hands about and looks around in wonder, explaining that she almost gave the Barista a $60 tip.
The problem solved, she continues to wait, a thick file folder with MY WEDDING carefully written on it in pink magic marker held tightly in her arms. Through the window she sees a man pull up in a huge, luxury Lincoln truck and she begins to wave vigorously, happily. Blondie is playing, the song “Dreaming,” and the woman skips out the door, her day ending just as she wanted it to, her life a dream of spring.