I think about men the whole drive up to The Centre of The Universe. Though mostly, I think about The Man for he is my reason for journeying to The Centre of The Universe this weekend. I take turns pretending who is sitting next to me in the passenger seat. At one point, I even entertain T is there. There is an uncanniness in this exercise because he really has sat next to me on the way to The Centre of The Universe before. Also, he was messaging me early this morning about a festival he thinks I should purchase a ticket to. It seems he has crept back into my life. Friends comment on this from a point of concern to which I reply with words like familiar and platonic.
I pull into a BP on the Calder Highway and think about The Man again as I fill Em’s car up with unleaded petrol. I am thinking about the time he explained to me the layout and design of petrol stations like these having worked as an engineer for one. It was the BP in Southbank, opposite the MacDonald’s, on the way to the market. I try to discern what I was wearing that day, the disposition of the sky, and what we were planning on cooking. All I am met with is the stark reality of my memory’s incompetence. What I do remember, clearly, is feigning interest and enthusiasm and afterwards feeling at fault about it. Waiting in line to pay for pump number one, a burly man, covered in a thin layer of dust and tattoos, makes it clear he desires to be in my passenger seat. At first, I feel uncomfortable with his advances. Eventually, we both laugh, and I relax knowing we are both on the same page that this is not a possibility.
Back on the Calder, I have a go at placing the dark, handsome man I have recently been seeing but this image cannot fully form. It’s as if to place him in the passenger seat changes the destination of the road trip entirely for he would not, I’m afraid, ‘get’ The Centre of The Universe. I realise this is not something I had to worry about with The Man and, in realising this, an analogy occurs involving a regular and passionate patron at the deli. This customer orders two sandwiches to himself or sometimes, if he is famished, three. I used to watch on from the shadows of the kitchen at the theatrical way he engulfed them like the sandwiches were the first and last meal of his life. Occasionally he would bring in a date and I’d have to try to act as indifferent as I could when he ordered from me a single sandwich. One day, he told us that he bought first dates here to save him time. If they didn’t like it here, he wasn’t interested as he truly felt the deli was congruent with his soul. It is concerning that we have not seen him in some time.
The seat empties and the reality of me operating this car on my own distils with a clarity that makes me laugh. I stop pretending and pay attention to the vibrating hum of the car moving at one hundred and ten kilometres an hour on the Calder’s bitumen. A lot of the once sealed rocks have come loose over the years and now shoot up to hit the sides of the car. The product of this constant rearranging of the road reminds me of popping candy and suddenly I feel as though I am sitting inside my head. Someone painted these lines, I think, in the same way someone designs petrol stations and underpasses and cars that allow me to drive to The Centre of The Universe. Thirsty, I stop at Panchos for a Virgin Mary as well as a cold coffee and stroll into town to locate Mum who is filling time with retail therapy before we can check-in. Lately, Mum studies my love life like a sport. Occasionally, she will commentate too. She doesn’t refrain from telling me she thinks I made a mistake ending it with The Man like that. I even received an email from her about it one Tuesday afternoon and wondered the thing Em and I wonder several times a week to one another: what does she do for work? In these instances, I must remind her that she never met him and then sit with the contemplation she has injected in me.
When I pull up at The Centre of The Universe and step out of Em’s black Mazda and into the country air of Lyonville, everything -for the first time today- feels very much as it should be. I collect my overnight bag from the door and feel embarrassed about the size of it. As I make for inside, an accented voice interrupts the absolute silence of this part of the world. There is nobody else around and I register this hello is for me. It’s been a large window since I last visited The Centre of The Universe; I forgot the way strangers approach one another with civilised ease. The accent belongs to a dark, handsome(ish) man sitting in a wicker chair. He looks like a washed-up celebrity. Like, I decide, Anthony Bourdain. He has the same cheeky grin and dark eyes, which reek of a problematic past. I say hello back and continue inside not thinking much of the interaction.
You’re twenty minutes early, Ken says seriously. He then winks at me and his serious face breaks into a smile and I relax knowing he is not annoyed with my eagerness but merely teasing. Ken is one of three part-owners of The Centre of The Universe. His outfits and general demeanour suggest Bernard from BlackBooks might be something of an icon to him. I order a pot of pale ale from Graham, one of the other part-owners, who doesn’t seem to recognise me behind the mask hanging over my face. The ale is so cold. I get stuck thinking about which variety of yellow it is. I sip it and am quickly reminded how the beer issued from the taps at The Centre of The Universe is the best in the world. I ask Graham for a glass of water to stop myself from sipping it too quickly to which he says… But aren’t you staying the night?
Waiting on the veranda for Mum and Dad to arrive, in one hand I hold the beer and in the other hand a book; sun is hitting every bit of me. A car pulls up at The Centre of The Universe in an old Subaru. The people appear to me as though they are in the Winter of their life. I watch them, from over the page, slowly open the boot and unpack modest overnight bags. I gather these people are my neighbours for the evening. I recognise how civilised this probably looks to them right now. I then get caught up imagining Mum and Dad’s pleasure when they arrive soon and see me sitting here like this in the doorway of The Centre of The Universe. I do not know in this moment they will not arrive for several hours, that Dad is preoccupied with pulling individual thistles out of their blank block of land. I return to staring at the words, not recalling where I had left the story last night, not even a main character or anything. So, I am not phased when someone interrupts me. I am relieved, really, to be pulled out of the unremarkable reverie occurring inside of me.
The interruption belongs to Anthony Bourdain’s slightly ethnic counterpart. His tall body has cast me in a temporary shade I am also grateful for. When I respond, I am surprised by how receptive I am to his questions and his lingering. I offer more than he asks for. I even go so far as to tell him I am an aspiring writer, something I never bother mentioning in encounters of this nature. Lately, Sicilian Nic has been willing me to identify this way and I feel comfortable and anonymous enough here to do as he says. I volley him a question back and he replies he is, in fact, the chef at The Centre of The Universe. I feel inclined to ask him if he is at all related to the late, great Anthony Bourdain. But he quickly returns to my disclosure about writing. He is very fascinated by this and the fact I had come all the way from the city to The Centre of The Universe for the night. I open my mouth to explain my intentions to come with The Man, but something pulls it closed it and holds it at a thought. I have been here before, I say instead. Many times, though not while you have been the chef, I don’t think. He nods and smirks sort of smugly. He then pulls out a tattered mustard-coloured pouch and lights a cigarette in a way that suggested cigarettes are an immutable fact in his life. I begin thinking about my own immutable facts but only arrive at avocados and pencils.
A long, but not uncomfortable, silence follows. My neighbours walk past me, and I register excitement in their eyes. They all nod awkwardly as they pass. It is a friendly agreeable nod toward my beer and my book and my wicker chair. A nod I imagine is them telling me they approve with the way have chosen to sit here and occupy time. The chef laughs and says he assumes people of my age can’t survive twenty-four hours without wifi or reception. The sting of this comment is dull and fleeting; I do not try and distinguish myself from the ‘people my age’ he is placing me among. Up until he said this, I had ceased to remember The Centre of The Universe is offline. I have another sip only to see my glass has hardly any yellow left in it. Cannery, I decide, watching the last of it disappear. I can feel the beer already moving through my body and lubricating my senses -my inhibition. I think of all the men I’d probably be inclined to message later and feel relieved to be here in The Centre of The Universe offline, if only for a short time.
The chef asks me if I know about a title, a book of poetry he found on the shelf in room 1. I shake my head, disappointed I cannot provide any insight on it and keep our conversation alive. He smothers his cigarette against the building’s brick and tells me he must return to the kitchen to prepare my dinner. Do you like potato gratin dauphinoise, he asks. I nod knowing only vaguely what this is. I register the excess of saliva in my mouth. Suddenly, I feel desirous and impatient for 8 pm. I can tell, in the way he keeps looking at me curiously and serving me questions, that he will be cooking with extra effort for our table of three this evening. Would you like me to ask Graham for another beer for you? He has moved now, placing me back in full sun so I can’t see much. I nod confidently towards the shape of him as if he’d read my mind and decide to begin the book again because there is time.
Yellow Days 