January 28: Hotel on Granville

I lay on the floor of the hotel bathroom, wondering how the last guest managed to take a shit on the ceiling. Sean is talking to himself in the other room. I'm not sure if it's the pills or the liquor or his liver or the pills mixing with his liver and liquor. He's old now, but he was a genius once. His songs are still here, his looks are still here.

He's yelling at some fucking protestant, he's mumbling something about potatoes and Debbie. I hear him crash into walls and lamps. I puke into the toilet and return to our room.

He has opened a beer, conflict resolved. "We should have a baby", he tells me. I lean over and kiss him. That sounds nice. "We should have wine first". The bar downstairs opens at 9am.

We go downstairs, and Sean is back, all the way. We settle in a booth. I order two bottles of red and he orders a double Jameson's. He remembers the time we walked down East Hastings together in our socks and tells me about his job as a nurse and his ex girlfriends and all the places he played in my city that were gone before I was even born. He has more grey hair than last time, but the rest is still jet black and wavy and full. I love his face. He talks like a poem. A beatnik, a country boy, an Irishman.

"You really like me, don't you?" Every time he sees me, it is a revelation. He's baffled.

I don't share hotel rooms with strange men that I don't like. I don't sleep naked with men I don't like. I don't go for shoeless walks with men that I don't like, or sit in bars at 10am with men I don't like.

He tells me I'm crazy. I tell him to drink more.

The waitress loves us and keeps coming over to talk. We play "guess our ages and where we're from". We agreed that he can be 39 and I can be 26. I'm from Pittsburgh Minneapolis, no, Philadelphia Seattle. Sometimes Saskatchewan. We accidentally gave away that he's from here.

He has to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes or so. His liver is tired of sharing his lifestyle. It's been too many years now, and it's taking a stand.

The first time he goes, I get a text message. "are you with him?" I put it away. I gulp my wine. He returns with a swagger and plants a kiss on me. I pull him on top of me and knock over my glass so we have to sit up and behave while the waitress cleans up after us. He smells so good. I love his songs. He loves how I do my makeup and how I'm crazy and he wants to bend me over the table right now but he needs to be excused for a minute.

"I know you're with him", my phone reiterates. I turn off the ringer and stuff it back into my pocket. He comes back and we love each other and we've always loved each other and we need to get married right now. His wife and him never got divorced, but she will give us best wishes, and if she doesn't he can go to jail for bigamy, he doesn't mind. His new girlfriend? Oh yeah. Her. He doesn't care for her much anyway. My lips and teeth feel good pressed into his neck and he puts his hand up my shirt and buries his face in my hair but he'll be right back, he just needs to go to the bathroom again.

I watch a bowling game on the TV in the corner. I pour myself the last drop of wine. I can't remember where it went. I get bored of bowling. I draw on a napkin. I watch the blue green red from the TV through his wine glass. When he finally returns to the table, he's English, talking about some fucking wanker he had a fist fight with in the bathroom. I looked around the empty bar, and he looks me straight in the eye, "Do you even know what my fucking name is? I bet you don't even know who the fuck I am."

"Still Sean McCourt, love of my life?"

"Damn straight. And who the fuck are you?" I open my mouth and he tells the seat next to him to shut up and let me talk.

"I'm Cowboy's ex-girlfriend. Will you still marry me even though he's jealous of you?" I ask him.

"Aye! Likely story." He's Irish again.

I grab him by the cheeks and kiss him. He tells the air to quit fucking watching and mind it's own business and throws his fist at it. I request the bill and a cab from the waitress so we can drive over to his place on Main Street and I can go to the greyhound depot and catch my bus on time.

He tells me a story in the cab about some 23 year old girl he knew once who doesn't come to see him anymore and he hasn't seen her in months because she left him like every other woman does and he doesn't know where he's going and where is he and who the fuck am I still, I never told him who I was. I hold his hand in my lap and trace the tattoo of a girl's name on his wrist.

When he cries into my shoulder and I cry because he's crying, it's ok, I'll be back in June, we can get married and have babies then, when everything's straightened out and everybody's sure of what everybody's name is.

He stumbles out of the cab and I blow a kiss goodbye but he doesn't look back. I'm scared to let him go this time.