Mackenzie’s

Solitary, middle-aged men, all slightly haunted looking, line the bar at Mackenzie’s.

The Leafs are on TV, but they’re losing again and nobody much seems to care, instead, they focus on the consoles in front of them, concentrating on the trivia game unfolding on the monitors above the bar.

“Which film features a man living the same day over and over again?”

The guy to my right, who is still in his FedEx uniform, is startled to attentiveness by this question, “Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day!” he shouts as if sounding an alarm.

The other men, slowly and silently, reluctantly even, nod—tell them something they didn’t know.

To my left is a man who smells like cigarette smoke and is wearing the sort of sweater that invites fascination and curiosity. How old is that sweater? Was it a gift? If not, what was it that attracted him to it? He’s the most animated person in the bar, giggling nervously and speaking quickly, his eyes always darting. He and the bartender, an efficient but world-weary bald guy, have a rapport, a banter, and they’re trying to stump one another with arcane Simpson’s trivia and forgotten players from the OJ trial.

Mark Furhman!

Nicole Simpson’s dog was a white Akita!

Can I borrow a feeling by Kirk Van Houten!

All night the conversation jumps about in this way. They’re no longer the people that they became, but are now floating free, inhabiting a nostalgic landscape where they remain limitless and ascending. O, there are just so many details to untangle and isolate, to cherish… Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, what country was the best to build your base from when playing Risk, and later, the naming of all the Replicants from Blade Runner, each one uttered with tenderness and respect, as if each one a kind of miracle, like a love from the past who was never to be seen again.