I spent a year in Montreal with friends that were fond of whiskey, gin and pot; we could be found at any party with libation or smokables in hand, lounging against a wall just so, slowly taking drags with pursed lips and silent nods. Yeah, man, we might have said, ridiculously, Manet speaks to me. An older transplanted Frenchman in my building named Raymond was married that winter, and he invited our Bohemian lot to the wedding and to the reception at the Ritz. We stayed sober for the wedding out of respect for the bride. I remember that a young man played a violin beautifully at the wedding, causing me to drift and forget the Anglican church in which I found myself. That evening at the Ritz in a winsome room of panels of paper and walnut, after I was kindly escorted from the women's rest room after blearily wandering inside, Hugh caught my eye and silently nodded towards a coffee urn. Raising my brows after noting the coffee in his hand, I walked over and poured a cup. I sipped and the world fell away in a soft splash of roasted coffee bean heaven, of velvet dark-brown heaven. We, all of us, switched from booze to coffee, certain that we would never taste such a perfect cup, again. I was up all night, chattering incessantly. One month later our bride died from the cancer inside her. Out of respect for the groom, we weren't terribly sober for the funeral. That same young man played his violin beautifully for the same crowd, causing me to drift and think about the bride: Margot, who had loved Raymond, briefly.
