Who remember the time when I was working down at the men’s club downtown? Remember the morning shift opening the club to those crazy die hard fitness enthusiasts who would bike in from the far south just before going to their super important office jobs. They say during it’s hay day it would have been a time. The oil and gas industry as changed immensely from the former glory days of yesteryear to what we have now. It isn’t even the pandemic crisis that made our work environment this way. It was coming down the pipe. The indication should have been when our fixtures in the club scene started to die off. We knew the end of an era was somewhere very near in sight.

Opening the club in the wee of hours of the morning there was always the potential for something crazy to actually occur. It was just that time in the morning where the creatures of last night are still out and about but the hard working blue collars are just arriving on the scene. Even one day as I rode the two short stops on the train to work a physical altercation broke out at 5 in the morning. Some giant of a man, who let it be known that he was racist, threatened to beat a senior African American into oblivion. Trust me when I say this not one person moved. Not one person looked up to help. We were all going to let it happen. Here I was just trying to pry my eyes open and I ran out of that car so fast to reach the conductor. A tiny little brown man. Everything inside me said this was going to end in a bloody massacre. I begged him to just call the police there was no point of him even going down there. My instincts told me to run and get that poor man help. You could tell he was homeless and was riding the train to get warm now this fat head was going to make him pay. Have you ever listened to another man scream at another to get the f*ck of of his country. Everything inside me said this man (the aggressor) probably never paid taxes ever in his life. People are weird these days my instincts are in constant over drive.

I feel like it might have been the same day because let me tell you my inner force was just rattled. Knowing that I did the best that I could I was eager to get to work. Then the sex calls happened. It wasn’t so much me that they were trying to offend. More than likely a disgruntled employee who would call to have upsetting words with the chef. The nature of the conversation I dare not repeat but it was extreme enough for the cops to be called, oh good grief. I hate having to re tell stories like this. Are you sure that’s what they said. Did they say anything else. Over and over again like I don’t have better things to do. I am not sure how it happened but when you are dealing with cops I have always had this yes sir let’s get this over with. Are we done here? Thank you. Long story short they ended up dropping a book off to me entitled ,”The Gift” which is all about our instincts and how we need to honour them more instead.

I ended up going out for a drink with the taller of the too. He was massive. Throughout our conversation I could tell he was trying to win me over but he was doing it all wrong. He would should me picture of his kids than tell me he was suspended for domestic assault. Attempted domestic assault? The point is I was sitting across from a cop who just admitted to me that he was under investigation for abuse and he is telling me to honour my instincts…RUN!!! I know don’t be so judgy give a cop a chance. Once I heard him refer to my server as n*gger let me tell you I was already more than done. When you are in a situation where things can easily slip out of control you have to remain in good mind and remember what you are capable of. When you are in the company of somebody who is eager to anger and is bigger than you and who just told you he has the power to make bad things go away you just listen and observe. Trust me the thought occurred to me to slip into the bathroom and drift off into the night but he already knew where I lived. I had to play it out differently. Like a fly on a wall I just let the night unfold.

At the end of the night as he was dropping me off of course he leaned in for a kiss. Not wanting to lose my beers in his lap I just opened the door and slipped out. I thanked him for the evening and he told me he would call me tomorrow. That gave me enough time to fully process what I was doing so things wouldn’t spin out of control. Him and his partner either had their patrol car or drove around in the unmarked van. Strange right? I would see them parked outside my building waiting to talk to me as I walked by. I would never leave if they were there. This whole thing was so odd. At 37 with no kids it was easy to pass him off. You are not what I am looking for and you should focus your energy on your two girls. Almost like if the cards were different and in a different life you would be my Knight in shining armour now get away from my front door. We have to listen to that voice inside of us more and trust she knows what she is doing. She has merely been sent here to guide us along to help us in deciding what we are doing.