And all up and down University avenue, in front of all the hospitals, people are out over their lunch breaks. Workmen sit on a cement embankment smoking. They’re grungy, hung-over, covered in tattoos, their construction vests hanging open. There is a leanness to these men that is both in the eyes and of the body. Glistening with sweat, they watch everyone who passes before them. Every woman walking by knows this. Every man. Everyone judged. Everyone sized up.

Dr. Oz was on.
Somebody talking about nuts
Which ones were good for you, which ones were bad.

We were a rapt audience in the waiting room, each one of us happy for the bland distraction, but also sincerely curious. Something had happened in our lives that had changed us. We’d all crossed a line, moving from our natural selves to the types of people who now hoped if only they ate the right kind of nuts then everything would be okay. A woman leaving the clinic stopped and looked at me. Having noticed the oxygen concentrator on my back she abruptly said, “I HOPE YOU DON’T SMOKE!” I assured her that I didn’t, that I had quit, and as I was saying this the person who had accompanied her said– in a voice meant to convey to us that we should think of this woman as a child–“It would be great if you could quit, too, Beverly! Maybe this man can tell you how to do it?” And we all stopped watching Dr. Oz. We all stepped from our anxieties. No longer thinking of ourselves as people who needed to be helped, we thought of ourselves as people who needed to help. And in this, we were released. The grief that had hung in the room dispersed, and as if by saintly intent, we were left there, still and light for a moment, the tv flickering irrelevantly in the corner.

They didn’t talk much, although the one with the small, white hospital towel draped over his knees, offered that, “heart disease might be involved, too.” He took a drag from his cigarette as he waited for a response. You could see the tattoos covering his hand, the IV piercing the skin just above the word HATE spelled out on his knuckles, the smoke being exhaled. The other guy nodded. He had nothing to say. And with that the conversation disintegrated. Just space between them now. An unbroachable distance. Grief-struck and lost, a million miles apart, they looked through all the people passing by on the sidewalk in front of them, and stared off into other worlds.

In it, he asks all sorts of cool, attractive and successful writers a series of questions about potato chips, but for some reason he forget to include me in his survey. This sometimes happens as an awful lot of people find my blinding talent and natural, easy charisma to be terribly intimidating, so they just act like they’ve never heard of me. Also, I’m sure that they figure I would command a very sizeable fee for any sort of participation or association, so I guess I understand why Kevin didn’t ask me.

No matter, as I am generous, I have decided to answer his questionnaire anyway.

1. Tell me about yourself. In 25 words or less, who are you?

I look like Elvis Costello, but remind people of Kanye. Skipped grade three. I do alright.

2.What is your favourite brand and flavour of chip? Of all the chips out there, what make it the every day chip?

O’Grady’s Extra Thick Au Gratin potato chip. They were as thick as a pork chop and covered in some sort of chemical cheese powder and they were awesome. Each chip was like a sandwich, a toxic, completely narcotic sandwich. I think they were discontinued in the 1980’s, although I did see a bag in an Amish General Store a few years ago in West Pennsylvania. (I heard rumours that they were used in the Chernobyl clean-up, but I never believed them.)

3. Have you ever had a negative experience with potato chips?

Yes. I had a Cinnabon flavoured potato chip the other day and it tasted like a fucking Cinnabon. It was disgusting. Also, I have very vulnerable gums and sometimes a jagged, little dagger of a chip can get lodged in them. Very painful.

4. Have you ever incorporated potato chips into love making? If yes, what was it like? If not, is this something you have considered?

Potato chip packaging has been used in a variety of sexual acts, but the actual potato chips have never been used in love making.

5. Finish this sentence, people who list plain chips as their top snack choices are _________.

First against the wall.

6. Dip or no dip?

Dips are for rookies and pretenders, the proper chip, the O’Grady’s Extra Thick Au Gratin chip, needed no such vulgar embellishments.

7. Do you ever mix flavours of chips? What is your favourite combination? Is there a combination you have been meaning to try? What is your signature blend and what do you call it?

Mixing flavours of chips is something a child or somebody who suffered a very serious head injury would do.

8. Dehydrated fruit chips, yay or nay?

If you’re a Dumpster Diver of some sort of Freegan, sure, but for members of society? Of course not.

9. Is there a time for a baked chip? Or is it a fry or die situation?

Maybe in times of extreme deprivation, like in a war, but certainly not when America’s clipping along at full speed.

10. Tell me about your favourite chip memory?

I was a student at University in Montreal and I was broke. I went to the local corner store and begged for credit, which they stupidly gave me. I bought a large bag of O’Grady’s Extra Thick Au Gratin potato chips, a can of Coke Classic, a pack of Winstons, five quarts of Molson and the magazine Celebrity Skin. I think it was the best night I ever had, a moment of still perfection that I travel back to often.

Just as I was about to move forward and pay for my items an old woman stepped wordlessly in front of me in the line. I looked down and saw that she had left her basket on the floor there before me. She dropped a few items into it and made a point of avoiding eye contact with me before pointing her chin up and away in a haughty, indifferent way. It irritated me a little bit, the way that these types of things do, and I watched her. Her hair was touchingly dyed the way that all grandmothers seem to colour their hair and the paint on her fingernails was chipped and fading, her fingers bent and swollen. On the back of each hand was a small, gauze bandage that had been taped into place by a nurse, little, island bruises spreading out from beneath— the signs of chemotherapy. When she left the store she got into a red Sentra that was idling in front, and sat down and smiled as if relieved. Her daughter or granddaughter, the woman who was driving, also smiled and they drove off, the old woman now happy, her basket full of the vegetables she need to make that special dish for her family who still remained.

Heading home I passed a beautiful young woman. The sunlight caught her hair and her cheeks were pinched  a healthy rose by the autumn. Her right leg was in a brace and she used a cane to help as she threw one side of her body in front of the other, heaving up the street toward the subway, beauty and sadness falling indiscriminately upon the world around us.

Appearing listless, she perked up when we approached and became animated at the sight of Heidi. I steered the dog toward her and the old woman nuzzled her ears and complimented her coat. We fell into the type of brief, friendly conversation you might imagine, “I am 89,” the woman stated flatly. “At 90, no more,” and she made a dismissive gesture, suggesting that would be the end. I asked if there was anything I could do to help her, “No, no. Thank you. I am old. I get tired so I sit to rest. You and nice dog go, I thank you,” and then she fanned us away with short, broken fingers.

A tall man stepped out of the recovery house at the end of the street. He was moving quickly, with anger in each step, and as soon as he hit the street he dug into his pocket, grabbed his smokes and lit one. On his calves were these horrible blotches that looked like a furious rash that was just now coming to order. On the steps above, leaning against the railing and watching him were three men. All of them looked uncomfortable in their scratchy shirts and ties, each one smoking and emitting a sense of deprivation and hostility that was palpable, even on the street beneath.

On Bloor we had the green light to cross but our passage was blocked by a luxury Mercedes that was situated directly in the middle of the pedestrian crosswalk. There was ample room for it to get out of the way and go either forward or back, but the driver at the wheel was distracted. She was texting, and as she was doing so she was smiling—maybe a good idea, the reception of happy news, calming plans. Normally I’d be touched by this glimpse into the small optimisms of a life, but by virtue of the hierarchy her car was designed to imply, all I could see was the sense of blind entitlement money bestows upon certain types of people.

We then popped into Queen Video to return a few rentals. The woman behind the counter, normally an enemy who refused to make eye contact or communicate beyond the rudimentary necessities of the job, was different. Typically sullen and angry, she was open and affable. She had abandoned her usual attire of severe glasses and a Death Metal Tee, and now in contacts she wore a heartbreakingly bad shade of eye shadow and the sort of top that an aunt from Scotland might send to you as a gift. For the first time in the five years that I have been going there, she wanted to give Heidi a treat. She spoke easily, talking of her own dog and a conversation developed between us and several other customers, each one of us saying things that made the others laugh, and whatever love had found the clerk  was now beginning to spread.