For those that don’t know me, I am a solitary man. Introverted to hell and back again. 

I like those I like, and I find there’s never much room to grow on that roster; those that find themselves on it are a unique bunch, and they’re well aware of the rarity. So it was a swell and too-late decision to remove myself from the constant onslaught of the raucous, Hamilton clientele and join the slimmer roster of the graveyard shift. 

Fewer people, quieter, a disquieting amount of energy found in living weeks at a time in one’s natural sleep schedule. It was serene, a true serenity listening to music while doing work which flew by without a word said. I quit, in a sense. I stepped down and away from what I did. Six years and that sure felt like enough for me. I adapted to another, one that far better suits my body, my life and my personality. 

It’s far less intricate, and yet still paying more, so not only did I love the simplicity, but those inherent benefits as well. 

This was until a month of bliss flew by, and a man returned from a leave of some sort. The first of which to properly introduce himself to me and thus I to him. An interesting name, Johl. With an ‘H’ in there for what I would eventually find out was gifted unto him due to his mother’s love for the name but her disposition towards names that all look the same. Names that could be mass printed on every mug or sandal in every tuck shop or museum. 

Bald, glasses, a little on the heavier side, but I wouldn’t deign call chubby. Precisely my height at an ever-lacking 5’ 11”, but both made up for in our amassing skills. 

“So, what brings you here, James?” He boldly asks, a little way later into working our tedious tasks.  

“Uh, nearly six years of being here prior, just on the other side of the clock. Grew tired of people and taking care of my patience; yourself?” I reply. 

He swings his arms around lazily from one side of the all-too-orange store to another. 

“Oh, this little old place? A job posting; within the right time frame; pays okay,” he says. 

“That’s certainly less interesting than the name on your bottle there,” I reply again, looking at it, beaten and bruised, in his cart filled with noticeably more cardboard than mine. 

And, well, from here began the story at length about his mother’s unique naming conventions. 

We begin slow and certainly begrudging from my end. I joined this crew to be quiet, but he could coax questions from my mouth every hour. Soon throughout every day and quickly every week. 

It started with interests, as any good relationship does, and much to my surprise, it started just as quickly with autism. 

As introverts, we are remarkably adept at watching, learning, and absorbing social cues and mannerisms. We care for these things to know that if, in the unfortunate circumstance, we’re approached, we already know how to handle that person. It’s an innate ability we hold dear to, and most certainly not an infallible one. 

I would never have guessed with him. 

I learned firsthand that night just how much truth there is to the often-stated fact of people with autism and their apparent mastery of particular skills. 

“There is quite a bit to get to know about me,” he said. “But know that I am only skilled in music. If I could be wholly enraptured, body, mind, and soul, into a singular speeding stream of consciousness, let it be in notes.”

As our nights go on, everyone has their Bluetooth speaker playing equally loud and proud. A thing I despise, usually,  but I learned to love Johl’s. His music taste is eccentric, to say the least. Around every corner, it's a new experience, from a massively unknown Japanese video game to Kiss or Bob Dylan. If I dare inquire through every song, he can talk about the exact notes and what makes them interesting. 

“That B sharp rubs up against the A note there, and the industry hates that,” he says nonchalantly.

I just open my eyes wide and nod my head. He could be entirely making this up as he goes, but there is something so confident in the way he talks about it. 

“That sound there is just a guitar rigged with synth; I used to do that on tour,” he says.

“On tour?” I ask, trying to hide my incredulous tone. 

And he responds at length about his now-dissolved band and the highs and lows of it all. His friends, their experiences together. He mentions a band I love, Walk Off The Earth, relatively well-known with a true magnum opus called Red Hands. He tells me that they’re Hamiltonians! A fact I certainly did not know and made me ever so slightly proud to be here. But, most of all, he told me their lead guitarist, a man named Tokyo, he regularly hangs out and plays with. 

One would think that is the most exciting part of my recent memory with Johl, but something happened a few days ago now. Often nights, as I try desperately to broaden my musical horizon, I find a few songs that I now play on my own speaker to try and uncover his emotions and skill in finding their merit. 

Most of the time, he responds, “You did it again; you found the songs for nobody.” 

Which is short-hand for songs that lack class and uniqueness. Anything that he can predict or he’s heard that riff or chord progression before, he considers as such. 

Until one fateful night, I played a song I found just the day before, and it stopped him in his tracks. 

He looks almost longingly in the distance, just past me, boring a hole into the back wall. If I didn’t know him as much at this point, I’d swear in a few seconds; I would have to catch him from being so lost in a trance I cast over him. 

But the song hits the chorus the second time through, and he snaps out of it. 

For the length of it, he rambles on nigh-incoherently about its chord progression and how wrong it is. How this should realistically be there. But just how good it sounds.

I watch in amazement as the next verse hits. His face is similar to the ones I make when I read an incredible phrase or sentence in a story, and it is ever-so-interesting to witness it from a different perspective on an entirely different art medium. Pixar’s movie Soul, I think, had it perfect by calling it: “The Zone.” A state one finds themselves in when mastering their art, however untouched in their two hours, was the sister state of being witness to the outcome of someone in their zone. Especially when the person witnessing it is in love with that medium of art, the look that grows on their face of understanding and pure adoration is nigh-unmatched. 

I am not entirely disconnected from music; I watch and read reviews here and there and have actively listened to quite a lot for well over half my life. I respect others’ opinions on such, and I value their reviews greatly as a lover of words. But once the song ended, he said something that stunned me, and still, I find it hard to parse as to why. He looked at me and said:

“I couldn’t predict this song for even a second; it had such bounce and oddity.”

There’s no greater moment to say I found a certain je ne sais quoi about those words to describe a song. I have heard bounce often enough towards a rhythm or melody, but never oddity, and certainly never together. 

He was just as astonished to hear how unique I found his accolades and descriptions, saying how he thought those adjectives were found in his mind just like the songs written for nobody. 

I’ve had just over six years now, here. And at year three, I thought that was far more than enough. Six years, my first job, a good enough one but certainly just that: enough. However, a new appreciation grew yet again. It grew first within the initial few weeks when I met who will soon be my best man and uncle to my kids. But, I felt that sense again when it occurred to me that, if absolutely nothing else, this place is a bastion for such interesting and unique personalities. There’s a new-found joy to going to work every night and happiness in staying for those three more years.