The heat sat upon everything.
Oppressive and exhausting, it slowly disabled the day’s options. You couldn’t go outside. You couldn’t get comfortable. You couldn’t even think straight, and every time you moved it was as if this thing, this heavy, unseen entity, was wrapping itself just a little more tightly around you.
It was a long weekend and most of the people in Toronto seemed to have vacated the city for cottages. As Rachelle, Jones and I drove through the city to the Ontario Science Centre, we passed empty streetcars on empty roads, and on very rare occasion a person—always appearing slightly dazed, as if they’d just forgotten where they were going. There was a distinctly post-apocalyptic vibe in the still, dirty air, and it all felt as much a dream as not.
The Science Centre was very crowded, though, and it was filled with people just like us, people looking for a place that was open to the public, air-conditioned and entertaining for young children. We were all lucky, all of us there, lucky to have such a place available to us, lucky to be able to use it, and lucky beyond the known margins, too, lucky in ways none of us could even imagine.
But still, it wasn’t easy. It was crowded and loud, even chaotic, and Jones was so excited that he ran in crazed and unpredictable zigzags, and after a few hours we felt like cats chasing the red dot of a laser pointer. And as it approached noon, the children, all exhausted and hungry now, began to throw tantrums. It was like artillery going off, like fireworks.
One child would explode into tears, another one would kick a juice box out of a parent’s hand, and another would just flop face first on the floor and begin kicking his feet, screaming. And so it went, a spreading contagion that was simultaneously hilarious and crushing.
We managed to slither and bounce through it all to find a passage that led to descending escalators. There must have been two or three of them, each one travelling deeper and deeper down and through the wooded ravine the Science Centre was built into.
It was like being submerged in a forest, and the air became cooler and lighter as we descended, and when we stepped off into the refreshing, muted light of a wide open museum space, we were transformed.
About fifty feet in front of us rotating light projections were being cast onto the floor from the ceiling. Ladybugs. Stars. Race Cars. Mysterious fish. Geometric patters. All the children dancing beneath and within this light, and everything was beautiful and quiet and astonishing, like we had just been led to an illuminated cave full of dolphins at play in the purest waters.
***************************************************
Rachelle: Are you still on for the Textile Museum at 2:00?
Rachelle: Tetanus?
Rachelle: No
Rachelle: No, I am certain there’s no such thing as a “Tetanus Museum.”
Rachelle: Well, I’m sorry you misunderstood.
Rachelle: But we have passes for the Textile Museum and we agreed to meet there in 30 minutes.
Rachelle: But you were so keen on seeing the Kimono of Itchiku Kobuta! You said that’s what you were going to name your Fantasy baseball team! What happened?
Rachelle: Really, Pickle?
Rachelle: You think it’s cultural appropriation?
Rachelle: And you don’t want to exercise your white privilege by exploiting something that was not created for the white, male gaze?
Rachelle: And in order to achieve that goal you’ve gone to The Keg Mansion, the place where everything is specially made for you, is that right?
Rachelle: Yes, yes, I know you have a gift card.
Rachelle: And yes, I know The Keg is your safe space.
Rachelle: You’ve said it many times.
Rachelle: Will you do me a favour? Just have a look around.
Rachelle: Do you see a bunch of men who more or less look like you, all eating steak and drinking wine?
Rachelle: Yes, or drinking Caesars.
Rachelle: And are they all being served by hot, young women laughing at all the jokes they’re being told through gritted, shoot-me-now teeth?
Rachelle: In the exploitation Olympics, I think that beats going to a fabric museum, don’t you?
Rachelle: Look, do you even know what false equivalency means?.
Rachelle: I thought not.
Rachelle: Oh, I see.
Rachelle: I was all wrong about Madison the server.
Rachelle: She’s different, is she?
Rachelle: Well maybe when she said that she didn’t mean funny ha-ha?
Rachelle: Okay, let’s just never mind.
Rachelle: Are you going to meet me or not?
Rachelle: Oh, your wedge salad just arrived!
Rachelle: Well obviously your hands are tied.
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: That was sarcasm.
Rachelle: Because you’re being a jerk.
Rachelle: Sweet Jesus.
Rachelle: In no way am I discriminating against you for eating meat.
Rachelle: I’m a Social Justice Warrior? I’m not even sure I know what one is.
Rachelle: You’re drunk.
Rachelle: You Keg-Sized your Caesar, didn’t you?
Rachelle: Yes, I am psychic.
Rachelle: I can also detect something slurry and aggressive in all your texts.
Rachelle: It’s like you’re campaigning for something.
Rachelle: Shouting from the podium!
Rachelle: Throwing emoticons everywhere!
Rachelle: Like angry confetti.
Rachelle: Whatever.
Rachelle: Just remember that the doctor said you could only have one drink a day, okay?
Rachelle: No, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.
Rachelle: I’m going to go to the museum then have a power skating session with Pierre.
Rachelle: No, he wasn’t deported.
Rachelle: He was in Costa Rica on a spiritual retreat.
Rachelle: Very tan. And he shaved off his moustache.
Rachelle: I know it’s a dream of yours to one day grow a full beard like Pierre does so effortlessly, but it’s just not your path, Pickle.
Rachelle: Yes, yours is the path of low testosterone and patchy facial hair.
Rachelle: We all have our crosses to bear, dear.
]]>It was a pretty busy day, and in almost no time at all I found myself separated from Rachelle and Jones. These are the texts from my wife that followed:
*****************************
Rachelle: Where are you?
Rachelle: The Bat Cave?! That sounds dramatic!!
Rachelle: Really? That’s weird!
Rachelle: I thought it would have something to do with Batman, too. Maybe a tribute to Adam West or something.
Rachelle: Adam West.
Rachelle: He just died.
Rachelle: He was the original Batman.
Rachelle: No, Michael Keaton was not the original batman.
Rachelle: Thought for sure you’d know that.
Rachelle: Well, because you’re seasoned.
Rachelle: That’s not an insult.
Rachelle: Seasoned things are delicious.
Rachelle: Like Ikea meatballs.
Rachelle: I still can’t believe you ate 19 of them that one day .
Rachelle: Yes, it was very impressive, very alpha male.
Rachelle: However, if you’d pushed through to 20 it would have been even more alpha, I think.
Rachelle: Just saying.
Rachelle: Where are we? How nice of you to ask!
Rachelle: We’re in the kid’s play area, right near the tepee.
Rachelle: I have discovered that medieval headgear is really heavy!
Rachelle: What have you learned in the bat cave besides the fact that Michael Keaton was not the original Batman?
Rachelle: And beside the fact that you’re old.
Rachelle: Bats eat mice like you eat meatballs.
Rachelle: Pickle, I am glad that you can still learn new things.
Rachelle: Sorry?
Rachelle: Why don’t you want Jones in the tepee?
Rachelle: Cultural appropriation?
Rachelle: No, I don’t hate my First Nation’s brothers and sisters.
Rachelle: The tepee was just a nice, quiet spot for Jones to sit and colour for a bit, that’s all.
Rachelle: I mean, it is expressly there for the kid’s to use!
Rachelle: You don’t know what the Great Spirit wanted! Perhaps that’s exactly what the Great Spirit wished for!
Rachelle: Lord, you have to spend less time on Twitter.
Rachelle: I swear, people should have to take a test before they get on that thing–like kids having to be a certain height before going on a ride.
Rachelle: I’m sorry Pickle, but you’re just too suggestible.
Rachelle: Last week you were insisting the Russians were cyborgs.
Rachelle: Regardless, it’s not a “cultural appropriation” tepee, but more of a “spirit guide” tepee.
Rachelle: I had a vision when I was in there.
Rachelle: Of Justin Trudeau.
Rachelle: He was dressed in his tepee denims and smelled of pine needles.
Rachelle: Shirt?
Rachelle: No, just the jean jacket.
Rachelle: Yes, unbuttoned.
Rachelle: I know. Yes, you and some other kids beat him up in grade school.
Rachelle: You know, that’s probably something you shouldn’t be so proud of.
Rachelle: No, you couldn’t.
Rachelle: No, you simply could not do a plank– no matter how much you trained or hard you tried.
Rachelle: It’s like the 20th meatball for you, a bridge you shall never cross.
Rachelle: Oh, no!
Rachelle: He didn’t speak at all, he just smiled at me, and when he did I knew that everything was going to be fine. Sunny ways everywhere!
Rachelle: Oh! I think I see you Pickle!
Rachelle: Do you see us?
Rachelle: Look! Jones has a dinosaur he wants to show you! He’s running to you now, our little sunny way is running right to you!
