12.30 AM
I’m standing in a bar on Bloor Street West. There are more people here than I thought there would be for this time of night on a Tuesday. I’m a little unsure of where I should start, so I take a seat at the bar and get, of all things, a Strongbow. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m already feeling tired, but I feel like I should go for the wimpy drink to start things off, and I just can’t bring myself to buy a Corona.
I watch the hockey game for a bit, until someone sits down beside me. He’s a younger guy, shaved head, diamond studs in his ears, and—with glaring prominence—a gold tooth in the front of his mouth. I decide to break the seal on the night and strike up a conversation. He tells me his name is Duel. I can’t stop staring at the tooth.
12.57 AM
“Ok, it’s 1 on a Tuesday night. Why are you hanging out alone in a bar?”
He thinks it over for a moment. “Well, actually I have an exam on Thursday, a couple of essays due next week, and I just needed some time to unwind. I’m a student, but I need to enjoy life to its fullest.”
I’m really bad at trying to mix work and bars, so I ask the obvious, “Isn’t it pretty late at this point?”
“I came here for a couple of drinks and I met these people [gestures to group at the back of the bar yelling about Jägerbombs] and suddenly I’m drinking like, five pints of beer.”
“Well it’s good to get out and get away from all that school crap, it kind of ruins you after awhile. How much longer are you going to stay out here?”
He gestures to his half-empty beer. “This is my last drink ‘cause I just got a shot. I don’t know what it is.” I look at the tiny glass of dark green liquid and scowl.
“That’s Jägermeister,” I say, furrowing my brow. God, I hate Jägermeister.
“I have no idea what that is,” he says. I’m not entirely sure what it is either, but I want to guess that it’s made out of herbs, vodka, and garbage.
“I don’t know, it’s repulsive. Tastes like old feet.” Duel laughs, and looks back at the group behind us, who are now cheering on their friends who are doing Jägerbombs. I hold my tongue as I think about what a waste of beer that it.
“Well, these guys [gestures again to the Jägerbombers] are students as well. I’ve never met them, but I got a shot, I had a smoke with them outside … It really humanizes you. They say U of T is a very anti-social school because everyone’s so focused on what needs to be done, so when you come here, that doesn’t matter because you’re a person here. That’s what’s fundamental about being here so late.”
1.30 AM
The bartender is a girl maybe a few years older than me, with long, brown hair and a nice smile. I’m considering talking to the Jägerbombers behind me, but instead decide to strike up a conversation with her. She introduces herself as Ashley.
As the first professional night-timer I talk to that night, I ask her if she could tell me any stories. She laughs, and gestures to the groups sitting around us. “A good story about working here at night? Honestly, you’re looking at it right now.” She pauses for a second, “Uh, there’s fights. Fights happen, they’re regular around here.” I try to press for more, but that appears to be all the detail I’m going to get. It would become a running theme through the night that while people are more than willing to talk about why they love being up at all hours, the fine details are lost to the daytime.
Ashley wants to step outside for a smoke, so I follow. Since it’s a Tuesday night, there are a few people milling around in the front, all of whom Ashley seems to know. “Industry folk,” she says. At first I think journalists, but then I realize that she means other bartenders. “On Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, it’s a lot of industry people because that’s when we get our days off, unfortunately. We have to work weekends and we can’t afford to take days off.”
A random guy smoking nearby chimes in, “No real weekends.” He sees the recorder in my hand and turns away, back to his cigarette.
“Does this mess with your schedule? It feels like it should.”
“Oh, totally, completely. I start at 7 and I work till 3 a.m., and by the time I head home, I don’t get to bed till 6 or 7 in the morning, and I get up around 4 or 5, so I never see daylight.” She takes a drag, and blows a thin line of smoke in front of the door. “All I really do is eat, sleep, and work. Last week, one of our girls was sick and I was coming in at like, 5 p.m… I left my house at 10 minutes to 5, and that was the first time I had seen sunlight in years.”
I contemplate this. I love the night, and haven’t seen a bed before 2 a.m. in my entire university career, but I wonder what it would be like to stop seeing the sun. It’s starting to get cold out, and as she heads back in, I take my leave to head further west, down a much emptier street than I’m used to.
2.05 AM
One thing that I’m beginning to notice is that there are a lot of cabs on the road. There are lots of cabs normally, mind you, but by this time, they are all that is out there. Also, while I’m still running into the occasional person on the street, pretty much everyone I’ve seen since I left the bar has been a particular type of guy, usually between the ages of 25-40. I see a younger guy coming out of a nearby grocery store with an armful of bags. I jog up to him, assuming that if he doesn’t want to talk and takes a swing at me, I should at least have enough time to duck—thanks to the plastic bags hanging from his mitts.
I run over and explain what I’m doing, and how I’d like to talk to him. He looks at me like I’m crazy, and goes, “Sure, why not. I’m … Will.” I guess that he’s giving me a fake name, but I don’t bother pushing him. Without warning, he launches into his story. For him, the night had started at a bar with his friends, and had taken a turn for the dramatic. His girlfriend had called him asking where he was, and here he was, at 2 a.m., with groceries. But why?
“I’ll make this interesting: she called me up about how I never take her out and got all angry at me, from which I inferred that I should go back home so we could spend the night together. But one beer and another beer led to another … I had promised her that I was going to pick up groceries, and that is the reason why I’m carrying three bags of groceries right now. I don’t want to have to be carrying groceries right now.
“Writing a paper on nightlife … there’s going to be a lot of drama involved. I live with [my girlfriend] which makes things complicated. The relationship is kind of going stagnant and I didn’t want to have to go home right away,” he says. I can already feel any of my set questions slipping away from me, into the dark void of relationship drama. I keep quiet and hold the recorder up a little closer as we walk together.
He continues on, “I got a call around 10 to come out to a show, and I could be at a show probably right now having a really good time, and I’m in fact FORCED to go back home to my girlfriend, whom I love and built a relationship with, and we really do in fact love each other, but we never have time alone anymore.” I’m starting to wonder if the stress in his voice is from the relationship issues, fatigue, beer, or a mixture of all three.
We walk a little farther, and split up at Bathurst Street. Before he goes, I ask him what’s been on my mind the whole time: “What did you get from the grocery store?”
“Uh … mushrooms, Mr. Noodles, onions, some organic potato soup, and some cheese, and a whole lot of junk.”
3.06 AM
I pull up to Robarts just after 3 a.m. I’m really starting to get tired now, and plan to start chugging as much caffeine as I can once I get inside. By the front door there are two guys standing and smoking. Since fatigue leads me to have far less tact than I normally should, I stand in between them and say, “Hey! Do either of you want to do an interview for The Varsity?”
The taller guy near the Robarts sign stares at me for a second, and then agrees. He tells me his name is Ghirmay, and offers me a smoke. As I’m lighting it, I remember the fact that I don’t smoke. However, the nicotine buzz will probably help to keep me alert.
I blow a line of smoke into the wind, and ask, “Why are you at Robarts at 3 a.m.?”
“I think the TV is so bad sometimes, [laughs] at home I can’t study, and I’m a night person.” His voice is incredibly soft, and I have to lean in to hear him.
“When do you think you’ll be done at Robarts?”
“I’ll be up until 7, and I’ll nap for about an hour, and then start my day, and I’ll do it all week. I’ve adapted.” He finishes his cigarette before me and walks inside. I stand out there smoking for a little bit longer, only to remember again that I don’t smoke. I stub out the cig on the wall, but I feel myself starting to get jittery, and for the rest of the night my coat would smell like tobacco.
3.48 AM
Upstairs on the second floor of Robarts, there’s the usual smattering of quiet studiers and people passed out on chairs and benches. I walk over to the west entrance, only to find three people sitting at a table with hula hoops. I sit down on a bench and open my cola. They introduce themselves as Melissa, Kasia, and Rehanna. I start off with the most obvious question: It’s 3 a.m. and you’re in Robarts with a hula hoop. Why?
Kasia: “We all have exams that we aren’t studying for.”
Melissa: “Stress relief.”
Kasia: “It’s good exercise, especially after eating pizza.”
Rehanna: “Hula hoops make studying normal.”
Kasia: “If Michelle Obama can do it, it’s good. Someone’s got the right idea somewhere.”
Oh-kay … so, why Robarts at 3 a.m.?
Rehanna: “It’s a night out to go to Robarts.”
Melissa: “We prepare food, hoops, caffeine …”
Kasia: “Aspirin …”
Rehanna: “Fatigue, headache, the hunger … It’s the Robarts hangover.”
Does it feel better or worse than drinking?
Melissa: “It’s more depressing.”
Kasia: “I don’t know, I kind of like it. At least you feel useful afterwards.”
Ever see anything weird?
Melissa: “We tried to get the security guard to hula hoop.”
Rehanna: “We had a friend sleep under the table once.”
Any tips for being here late at night?
Kasia: “Save yourself a spot, and run away for an hour when the cleaners come around.”
Do they run you over with the sweepers or something?
Melissa: “There’s no point in being here with the vacuum cleaners, they will eat you.”
Rehanna: “Oh, don’t forget your TCard ever, they will eat you.”
Melissa: “Even if you come here every day and you don’t have your TCard once …”
Kasia: “You know you’re here a lot when the security guard compliments you on how nice you look with your hair down.”
As I leave, they pull out the hula hoops and start doing tricks by the revolving doors. I’m starting to get really hungry, so I decide to find food as my last stop on my trip.
5.16 AM
I’ve been wandering around for a while, and I’m starting to get hungry. I pop in at Fran’s on College, and I’m the lone customer in the place. I order a breakfast plate from a waiter with giant gages in his ears, and after severely burning the inside of my mouth on a very hot home fry, I invite Ryan (the server) to come join me. I can feel my mouth blistering on the inside as I talk. “How’d you end up doing this job?”
“I got into the restaurant industry as a basic job about 15 years ago. It just works for me with my life, because I also do music, and the days and the evenings are the only two times when rehearsals and auditions are. I’ve got my own project right now, and I’m playing in an Aerosmith tribute band that hires me on weekends, and I also do freelance session work when it comes around. I’m busy as I can be.”
“How much sleep do you get in a week?”
“I get off at 8 in the morning. If I’m really tired, then sometimes I’ll rehearse from 8 at night, so I’ll get up at 6 in the evening and go to rehearsal from 11 until midnight, and then work ‘til 8 a.m., so I’m dead by 4 a.m., but I’ll have a few coffees and get through it.”
I’m tired just thinking about that. “Do you miss having some sort of a normal schedule?”
He laughs, “I don’t even know what that is. On my days off I’ll reverse my schedule so I can feel a little bit normal and get stuff done. I’m just not a 9-to-5 person. Besides the look,” he gestures to his ears, “it’s the mentality I can’t deal with. The people at nighttime, they’re more relaxed and they relate to me better.”
I decide to ask him about stories he might have from working night shifts. He responds, “I’ve seen pretty much everything. I’m sure there’s many things I haven’t seen, but the late-night scene downtown in a big city and you serve so many people; some are sober, some are high, some are drunk, some are a mix of everything. You don’t know what’s going to come through the door.”
It’s late enough that I’m starting to feel contemplative and dozy. I start the trek home, passing more and more people as the night winds down. It’s still dark, my legs are freezing, and the caffeine has worn off. I’m now sick of this article, and just want to get into bed.
6.15 AM
At home, I crawl into bed beside my boyfriend. I jab him hard in the side.
“Steve, why are you awake at this hour? The Varsity wants to know.”
Steve looks at me, bleary-eyed. “I’m awake because you just woke me up, what the fuck?” He gives me a look and rolls over. “I don’t understand you or your journalism stuff.”
Wrapping my arms around him, I ask, “What would you like to tell the readers?” He doesn’t respond, and has already fallen back asleep. I try to join him in rest, but my body won’t relax, and instead I lie there, watching the hours tick by in silence. The rest of the world is getting ready for their day, welcoming the sunshine and enjoying the brightness like it’s their first time in the sun.
