He sat alone at the bar counter at Red Ginger. The lone wolf of Red Ginger. He must have been in his early 50s. His jaw slackened slightly, his face a portrait bearing both the horror and beauty of life. A man marinated in seasons, with his beer and his thoughts.
What fascinated me about him—and it’s what drew my attention to him—was his ability to sit very still. He had no temptation to touch his phone, which was lying on its belly on the counter like a colicky baby.
His hands folded across his chest, he stared ahead. He reminded me of what Blaise Pascal famously wrote: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." He had cracked it. The room, in this case, was this bar.
The bar at Red Ginger, for those who've endured its charm, erupts into a hubbub come evening. It’s a riot of loosened ties and after-work rituals, of folk who want to catch a match or just unwind before heading home.
This wasn't the kind of place where one seeks profundity. Thinking, after all, is strictly for hotel bars. Yet—yet—this man, amidst the glorious din, remained still as a predator.
I wondered what thoughts bedeviled his mind. When I was younger (late 20s), I went drinking with my then editor, and we saw a man drinking alone in the bar, deep in thought. I remember him saying, “That’s who we will be when our children go off to university and we are trying to raise fees.”
And so I have always associated a 50-year-old man drinking alone in a bar with thinking about college fees.
At 28, you never truly believe 40, let alone 50, will arrive. But time, that sneaky bastard, comes rushing at you, and suddenly you're the one in a bar in an Indian restaurant, nursing a beer and getting sized up by some nosy writer.
This is an ode to anybody who has mastered the art of stillness.
