A Rainy day.

One day I woke up and heard the rain drumming on the roof. As I looked out the bedroom window, the water was streaming down the glass. I sat up and felt the carpet with my toes. It was twenty-five past six in the morning. A voice message from my boss told me that the construction site was closed due to the weather; Spring had come a month early this year in Ontario. I managed to get up from the bed cautiously like an old man getting out of a bathtub. Arthritis in my right knee was making it difficult to bend due to the unexpected season change; seventeen years of skating and hard falls. I gradually made my way to the kitchen and took a couple of aspirins with my coffee and lit a Marlboro. The kitchen was always a mess. Four male backpackers living under one roof would make a disaster out of anything. I ambled slowly on my way to the front porch to do two of my favorite things in the world, be entertained by the rain, and read a book.

The beautiful nineteenth-century characteristic Victorian house on Euclid Avenue was in the heart of Little Italy; downtown Toronto. The place had history and we were part of it. That was a proud feeling. I sat on the porch and drank my cup of black java while I watched the heavy rain fill up into a puddle in the center of the road. I let my mind wander for a few moments in the damp air; it was a perfect combination, not too hot, not too cold. I began to read my book. After a few chapters, the housemates came out, one by one, and took up their usual places. We had three chairs and a two-seater red couch with a small wooden brown table that had an overfilled ashtray beginning to resemble a volcano in the middle. It was easy to ignore them at first until Owen began to tell me about our colleague Henry, who had avoided paying him back the one hundred dollars that he borrowed. Absorbed into my book with an unlit cigarette in between my fingers had suddenly become difficult to read. The other two housemates' eyes were glued to their phones. Owen kept on blabbing his words to the side of my face, and no matter how hard I tried to concentrate, he ripped me from Bukowski's story; a rain of women. Owen had ruined my moment. I got annoyed and lost my patience. Then I got annoyed at Bukowski for delaying the truth about the dirty realism of reality and how everybody just eats up someone else's moment of peace and harmony.

I closed my book and threw it onto the ash-covered table. I looked at Owen with disappointment and politely asked him to make me another cup of coffee. He got up and went into the kitchen without any hesitation. Rob from Perth leaned over onto the edge of the armchair with all of his weight on it and said to me, " Mate, we've heard this story a million times." in an Australian drawl like Steve Irwin. I gazed hard into Rob's hazel eyes and told him that it was not Owen's fault that he needed to voice everything that consistently disturbs him due to his disability.

"Yeah mate, whatyacallot, the thing he has?" Rob asked curiously.

"Asperger syndrome" I answered sedately before I lit my cigarette.

"Ass burgers!?... Huh?"...Is that how'd you say it? What is it?" Rob asked confusingly.

I let the smoke seep down into my lungs and blew it out slowly before I repeated the words again and explained to Rob that Owen is affected by a level of autism and gets fixated on situations to deal with everyday life.

"You've seen how he functions. You know he is in the kitchen right now waiting for the kettle to boil as he walks from wall to wall at a steady pace. He forces himself to touch the walls three times with both hands, talks to himself in a low voice, and lets out a little laugh." I explained "People who are affected by the syndrome function in a unique way"

Rob giggled after I was finished, "Yeah mate, Owen is certainly very entertained in his own weird world. He even walks a bit funny too." He commented with another chuckle.

Diego from Mexico lifted his eyes from his iPhone and looked at Rob. He shook his head sideways as he was not impressed with Rob's joke. He got up and nodded at me before he made his way back inside the house and I heard his footsteps mount up on the staircase.

"Dude, go and shit in your hand!" I carped at Rob, "Diego was not impressed with what just you said. Diego doesn't speak perfect English!"

Rob's smile had turned flat.

"Owen has more confidence than anyone in this damn household. He is an Aussie from Cairns who is living in a different country. He works hard. Have you ever seen him at work? No! Owen will get his hands dirty and underpin the foundation of a house to the freaking exact point without reading the blueprints! That is talent." I vented at Rob with some anger in my voice.

"Owen is an easy-going person and a hell of a team player at work who has the courage to accept his everyday challenges and still goes on to live his life to the fullest...He has even worked on cargo ships and sailed through the goddamn Panama Canal!"

There was an awkward moment of silence, eye to eye after I had blown my steam. Rob got up and walked into the house without a word. He knew he had stepped over the line without thinking. Owen had returned with two coffees. He stretched his arm out to give me my cup as I thanked him and he sat down in his usual spot. The rain had weakened and I picked up my book to finish where I had left off. All I could hear was Owen mumbling a few words to himself in a low voice and in the corner of my eye, I watched him rock backward and forwards in his chair, with his hands close together but I knew he was alright, and needed a moment to himself.