the White House Press Secretary to President Donald Trump, was refused service at the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia based on “moral grounds.” The owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, simply did not want to serve somebody she found so politically offensive, and so she didn’t.

Since then the Red Hen restaurant in Washington, DC, which has no affiliation with the one in Lexington, has been getting attacked by both left and right on social media.

Keep in mind, this is not the restaurant that refused Sanders service. No matter, even after they explicitly stated that this was all a case of mistaken identity and they had nothing to do with the Huckabee Affair, people still demanded that they take a political position on the matter. The Red Hen responded by saying that businesses in DC are prohibited from discriminating against people for political affiliation because they are in a federal district. This wasn’t good enough. People still pressed them. Okay, we know you’re not the restaurant that was involved, and we know that you are subject to different laws and therefore don’t have a choice to make in the matter, but what if you did have a choice? What if you were the restaurant she walked in to? What would you do then?

And so it goes.

And now Donald Trump is tweeting furiously at the Red Hen in Virginia ( the right one) in the hopes of destroying their business.

The owner, likely seeing in herself a patriotic exemplar, stands by her act of micro resistance while the pitchfork and torch crowd– from both the left and right–gather, eager to burn some shit down.

So surreal and terrible and hilarious and scary.

It’s amazing to me just how quickly things are reduced to the symbolic. All the nuance, history, vulnerability and complexity that informs a person– or a restaurant, even–are swept to the side, reduced to little more than the baleful projections of a furious, roiling,  unconscious. The appetite right now is for enemies rather than friends, so if you’re caught in the public eye you become what that public needs you to be, not who you might actually be.

And so when I see Sarah Huckabee Sanders tossed about in the media, I think of Monica Lewinsky.

They really look alike.

 .      

I mean, they really do.

But beyond that, remember also how Monica Lewinsky was treated by the press and public? She was despised– crucified, by both the left and right, for the sins of Bill Clinton. Honest to God, I think it’s a miracle she didn’t jump out a window. But she survived, admirably, in fact, and it’s as if her ghost is now visible in “the perfect smokey eye” of Sarah Huckabee, and the antipathy that Lewinsky withstood is now being visited upon her. Both of them appear as privileged white girls, Beckys, really, and their ambition, greased by a system that favours people like them, propelled them right next to the most powerful man in the world, and this, this seems to be something our society simply cannot abide.

Ask Hillary Clinton.

And so these women rise up into the culture like cautionary tales. Reduced to cartoon figures, they float slowly above us, soft targets, while we, the rabble beneath cast stones and curses. If you’re a woman and your cultural centrality can in any way be traced back to a powerful man, you will be hated for it– by men, and by women, it would seem. This is America, and if you’re a woman and you fly too close to the sun, you’re declared a witch and you’re going to get burned, whether you deserve it or not.

And although Doug shares the same bullying, impenetrable forehead and tiny, receded eyes that characterized his younger brother, he is distinct in a few ways. Primarily, he has always been seen as the steadying brains behind the operation. Always a belligerent and pitiless protector of his misunderstood, addict brother, Doug was also seen as the intellectual wind beneath Ford Nation’s wings. Doug dealt dope, while Rob used it.

That sort of thing.

At any rate, Doug Ford is now running against Liberal Kathleen Wynne to become the Premier of Ontario. He is doing better than you’d think, and seems to be riding a conservative, populist backlash that’s shivering up the spine of so many nations right now. Doug Ford, a white, affluent suburban businessman from a political dynasty, has long fashioned himself as being “For the People,” and has been making a point of courting various communities that might find more in common with his traditional values than say, Kathleen Wynne.

Who is a lady.

A lady lesbian.

A lady lesbian who is not For the People.

A lady lesbian who hates your way of life.

At any rate, one of the ways that the campaign is doing this outreach is for Doug and his family to go to a different community restaurant each month and review it. It’s part photo-up, part promotion for small business, and an opportunity for Ford to network and get his face in media. This is his first review:

Doug N’ Dash Food Reviews

******************************

Pukka (Indian)

778 St. Clair

Toronto

I have to tell you, when I heard the name I didn’t want to go. Who wants to go to a restaurant with a name like that? Nobody, that’s who. Lazy marketing there. Imagine if my family had called Deco Labels and Tags, FIBROMYALGIA or something.

Pretty negative, pretty confusing, eh? So the first thing I would do is change the Puke name to something like: GOOD INDIAN FOOD THAT ISN’T TOO GODDAMN SPICY AND COMES AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE.

The Indian people, so famous for their yoga, bright colours and diarrhea, aren’t stupid. No they just need somebody For The People, somebody who knows how to get the job done, to serve as a business mentor to help move them out of all the 7-11’s and into buffet style operations they can run themselves!

You will notice that Kathleen Wynne, who does not love minorities as I do, ever in a restaurant. This is because she has a finger disease in which the the skin is always peeling off. Really gross. Like a snake shedding it’s skin or something.

You watch her fingers.

You’ll see she’s hiding something.

So I had the butter chicken and the wife, who doesn’t much like the Indian food as it can give her the Aztec two-step, had something with kale in it.

You know women. Straight women.

Anyway, my chicken was good.

Not Swiss Chalet good, but good.

I’d give it a 7 out of 10.

Karla said her kale thing was good, too.

THIS RESTARAUNT IS FORD APPROVED!

They all appear so wealthy and beautiful. Dressed crisply in black and plugged into their iPhones, they move swiftly and with such confident purpose that they seem visitors to this world—weightless, as if they might flicker in the dusk and then simply vanish. But the men who carried all of their possessions in hockey bags on their backs, who had decades of anger and disappointment burned into their features, they seemed weighted and permanent, and they stared like fires at these people streaming by.

Rocks left on the banks of a great river.

**************************

To get around the city I now need to use supplemental oxygen, which means I always have a tank on my back with tubing that leads to my nasal passages. In the stores, some people give me tight, warm smiles, the sort of smiles you see more in the eyes than on the lips. “There but for the grace of God, go I,” these smiles say. And of course, other people notice nothing at all, seeing just a form amongst other forms.

A couple, the only customers at La Hacienda, sat at a big, glowing window table.

She looked wary, as if a naturally defensive manner was built into her character. On the TV show of her life she would have been the sarcastic one, the one who always lived on love’s periphery. He was leaning in toward her, having made his body expansive and noticeable in effort to conceal his verbal insecurity, his fear that he was actually boring. And she was leaning away, as if she couldn’t believe she’d ben trapped by Jerome and his stupid man bun, and while he was talking she was actually composing the story she would tell her friends about this encounter later on, but still, there they were. Just the two of them glowing in their youth, glowing in the dark, glowing like a Christmas display in a window, and I wanted to yell at them, to shake them, “Damn it, fall in love, create a story that will last generations!” 

On the street I was trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab. After about 15 minutes a young, college kid in a hoodie showed up beside me. He was so fresh-faced. His smile a simple, uncomplicated thing, his eyes clear. He wanted to get a cab for me. He wanted to run blocks to find one. He wanted to kick through the slush and snow and bring this good deed home to me. He wanted to find the lost dog, he wanted to clear a path for everybody in need, to be that light in the dark, that thing you remember when you think of Christmas.

After the meal, Rachelle went off to run some errand with her sister while I decided to wander about the streets of our old neighbourhood.

Not sure where to go, I just stood on the sidewalk attempting the appearance of somebody who was making an important decision. This must have looked like providence to the woman walking by. She did a double-take, and then looked intently at me me, this man pulling an oxygen tank behind him lost in deep thought. She smiled, wanted me to know a bit about God, and handed me a pamphlet that asked the question, “Will suffering ever end?”

As if in answer to that, a street person immediately joined me on the corner. I would guess that she was in her 20’s, but she might have been younger. Through her wounded shell, you could see the beauty inside, how if just a few things had been different in her life, this capacity for joy would have blossomed.

She didn’t seem to want much more than company, as she just stood beside me, somehow assuming an immediate and willing position of subordination. It was as if we were now, and always had been, part of the same pack, and I was the Alpha.

Strung out and jittery, she kept shifting her weight from one foot to the other, sometimes moving in small circles in order to scan the horizon in all directions. Between her fingers she kept the small stub of a cigarette. There was little tobacco in it, but she worried it between her fingers like Rosary beads, asking each person who passed if they had a light. I tried to communicate to her that because of the oxygen tank I had with me, I couldn’t be around an open flame as it might cause an explosion, but she didn’t seem to understand.

I had to leave, but I didn’t want to. I felt protective, like she needed me there. I wanted to help her somehow, but the circumstance of my oxygen tank and her need to smoke were dangerous.

“Okay, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

She looked disappointed.

“I can’t talk,” she began, “my words go away and I can’t find them, but I want you to know I’m big.” Her eyes were wide and she stretched out her arms, “I’m more.”  

It was a hot night and most people were sitting out on the patio, but we were inside at a booth that had a view overlooking Bloor Street.

As we studied our menus, a bird flew in through the open doors leading to the patio and with a feathery thud, hit the window directly behind our table, and then slid out of sight into a narrow channel that dipped behind the restaurant’s banquettes and between the windows.

The staff seemed indifferent to this small calamity, more concerned with keeping the operation running smoothly than rescuing the tiny bird. For a variety of reasons, our table was incapable of physically rescuing the bird, as well as being unable to persuade anybody else to do what we could not.

The slender alley in which the bird was trapped wasn’t wide enough for it to fully extend it’s wings, but it kept trying. Flapping madly but futilely, it struggled to lift itself out of the mysterious and disorienting circumstance into which it had suddenly arrived. It would rise up, and then just a tiny bit more, almost to the lip of freedom, and then exhausted from the effort, collapse.

There was nothing we could do, and the bird, subject to an indifferent environment it could not comprehend, fought again and again. And throughout the meal we heard the small, determined sounds of struggle, of something almost taking flight and finding the release of infinite horizon.

Glum and distracted, on one of the saddest nights conceivable, we sat there eating amidst the repetition of heroic failure– each one of us not having to work too hard to find a parallel situation in our own lives, each one, rooting like hell for that bird.

The Ottawa that I remember is a sincerely, and wonderfully decent place. The average person, somebody who might work modestly within a cautious and secure bureaucracy, was friendly, wholesome and responsible– the kind of person you hoped might live beside you.

There’s a lot of planning in Ottawa. Nothing happens without forethought in the city, and sometimes it feels as if life doesn’t happen in real time, exactly, but in a kind of cushioned, protected time. Parliament, in spite of being perched on a cliff and its jagged Gothic flourishes has always felt about as accessible and threatening as a Keg restaurant. There was just nothing menacing or intimidating about the place. It was like the Block Parent on the street, the home of a kindly couple that never had children and would always protect you when the local bully tried to steal your toque.

You felt safe, even welcomed there, like you might even get fed some Kraft Dinner before heading on your way. In fact, Parliament was so homey that a colony of cats actually lived there for years.

And to watch the city experience something as merciless and bloody-minded as the shootings, something that existed at such a terrifying remove from our comprehension and control, was unbearably sad. The rules by which Ottawa lived, that had come to subconsciously frame my psychological landscape, did not apply. The world that I imagined existing when I grew up likely never really did, and now, from the distance of middle age, I can see it receding quickly.

The eruption of violence, in a city that had always seemed frozen in time and almost magically apart from the real world, was a blunt and pitiless assault on the myths that have sheltered and nourished me over the years. It was like watching somebody whom had always protected me and I loved, getting beaten up and being powerless to intercede. A kind of chaos, emerging from a vast and dark pool, had descended on the ordered and good, and the sadness I felt about watching that was deep and heavy in the bones—the echoing gunfire amidst Gothic arches and limestone columns, a sound not soon to be forgotten.

R: My hockey game just ended and I should be there in about 10!

R: No fights.

R: There are never any fights.

R: Well, thank you, I guess.

R: I appreciate that you think I would be good in fight.

R: It’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.

R: Very romantic.

R: Oh, you got the best seat in the house!

R: Well done, Pickle!

R: Yes, your charm is considerable.

R: I bet the hostess didn’t stand a chance.

R: Those new sneakers really give you a lot of confidence, don’t they?

R: Imagine how you’d feel if you had a driver’s license and a job, too??

R: You’d be made of confidence! You’d probably take over a country or something!

R: I’m not being sarcastic.

R: I’m being cute, playful and funny.

R: Hockey doesn’t make me mean.

R: Oh, Pickle, you know I love you, and I do appreciate that you got there early and used your charm to get us the best table in the place.

R: Yes, you do have a commanding presence. It’s clear from the way that animals always obey you.

R: Our dog, for instance, she really listens!

R: And remember when the squirrel knocked you over and gave you a bloody nose when it stole a lozenge from you?

R: No? Well, you did hit your head pretty hard, it’s possible you got a concussion.

R: Yes, you just keep up with the online brain games and I’m sure you’ll be fine.

R: I know you skipped grade three, but honey, that was a very, very long time ago.

R: WHAT????

R: REALLY??? HOLY FUCK!!

R: For the love of Christ, DO NOT SAY A WORD TO HIM!!

R: I CANNOT BELIEVE JIM CUDDY IS IN THE RESTAURANT!! OMG!

R: NO!!! Do not tell him that you really admired his work in the Bare Naked Ladies!

R: You know damn well he was in Blue Rodeo.

R: But it’s true, I would be a bare naked lady for him!

R: How does he look?

R: Yes, it is interesting that you got the best seat in the house and not him. HOW DOES HE LOOK?

R: Oh, he’s wearing ugly sneakers, is he?

R: I still love him. I would love him in any weather.

R: Whatever you do, pleasepleaseplease don’t speak to him.

R: Please, promise me that.

R: Look, I’m allowed celebrity crushes.

R: I know you’ve been looking at the nudes of Jennifer Lawrence.

R: I know you say you’d never violate her and that it’s a sex crime to look at stolen photos, but your Internet history tells a different story.

R: Look, let’s cut the bullshit, just make sure I’m sitting where I have a clear sight line to him, I’ll be there in 30 seconds.

The girl working the cash was young and seemed excited by her job, exuding a manner that suggested she brought a great rush of enthusiasm and competence to everything she did. Cheery, even encouraging, she practically told me the story of each item I was buying, health and optimism radiating from her like sunlight.

On Dupont, a lovely, young Indian woman in Lycra yoga gear was doing some modest stretches against the steps near a restaurant. It wasn’t accidentally beautiful, there was some intent to her actions, but it was close. However, every time a man walked down the sidewalk she tensed up and became anxious, just waiting for something unpleasant to happen, for some guy to say something that was going to ruin her fragile day.

And as she did some calf stretches, a young woman proudly walked past her. She was swinging her arms and there was a spring in her step. She was feeling good, like a world-beater, and she was wearing a vivid, bright red t-shirt that said, “This is my Jesus year,” animated by her faith, an unknowable courage seemed to be guiding her through the day.

You have to curl and curve a bit to get there, navigating the narrow, broken roads until you come upon a small, rum shack set back a bit from the road. Remote from the perspective of a tourist, it seemed that this just happened to be where Rita lived as opposed to being the result of any sort of opportunistic business stratagem.

It was early afternoon and we were the only people in the two-table place. The pair of middle-aged women we encountered seemed indifferent to our arrival, maybe even a little bit confused by it, as if we’d gotten lost, happened into their kitchen and awoken them from naps. Without being particularly eager to impress, they decided they’d cook us some lunch, moving heavy and wordless back to the kitchen.

It took a long time, and as it was a very hot and humid day, Rachelle retreated to the protection of the AC of the car. Shortly after, the rain came in relieving torrents. The chickens that had been roaming freely in front all scattered, but the Blackbelly sheep in the field across the street were completely immobilized, as if cast under a spell. It was mysterious, almost mystical for me to see them frozen like that and I was utterly transfixed. One of the women looked at me and shook her head, “Sweet Jesus, it like you never see sheep before!” she said, as she shuttered the windows and closed the doors, the scent of pot drifting in with the wind and spray.

The rain stopped before the lunch was made, and I stepped outside as the women swept the accumulated water from out of the shack. The chickens had reassembled, each cock now crowing, creating a network of communication echoing down the streets. Nearby at a sheltered picnic table, three young men sat smoking and drinking. A gentle looking Rasta called me over, curious about the off-season tourist, and the group of us chatted for 10 minutes. One of them, just a boy, was hard looking, as if already preparing for a difficult future, the other one, chilled-out and fleshy, smoked dope with lidded eyes, the tattoo Self Made inked onto his hand.

They were going to be there all day. More friends and acquaintances– buying little bottles of rum from Rita’s—would be joining them as the hours passed. None of them had ever been off the island or expressed any particular desire to do so. The Rasta, rolling a new joint, asked me, “You like Barbados? It’s paradise, eh?” but he said this hopefully, like he was looking for an outsiders reassurance rather than expressing a known certainty.

M: I’m going to assemble our barbeque.

M: Yes, I am.

M: Yes, I’m serious.

M: No, Chris isn’t here. I’m on my own.

M: Really.

M: Just me.

M: Don’t be condescending.

M: All the pieces are spread out before me in the backyard.

M: No, I can’t put them back in the box.

M: Because I threw out the box.

M: And the instructions.

M: I don’t need them. It all looks pretty obvious.

M: I can intuit these things.

M: Yes, like I can intuit the presence of a ghost or when a waitress has a crush on me.

M: You’re very funny.

M: Do we have a screwdriver somewhere?

M: I don’t know what type of screwdriver, one that works, I guess.

M: Really? Screwdrivers have names?

M: Phillip is a funny name for a screwdriver.

M: Are you making that up?

M: Whatever.

M: I found it.

M: Geez, there are a lot of little pieces here.

M: And they all look kind of alike.

M: No.

M: No, I am not going to turn on the webcam.

M: You’ll just have everybody at work watching! I know you!

M: Remember how the pastor said you had to believe in me?

M: Well, he said something like that anyway.

M: Just believe in me, dammit!

M: Oh, hell.

M: Do we have any Band-Aids?

M: Very minor accident.

M: Wasn’t expecting the dog to jump up on me while I was attaching the black thing to the silver thing.

M: Really muscling it, you know, and then Heidi started to lick my face.

M: It all just kind of sprung back into me.

M: Knocked my glasses off.

M: Might have lost part of a filing, too.

M: No.

M: No, I’m not positive, it could have been an old piece of a peppercorn.

M: Actually, I think I would do well on Survivor Island.

M: Probably finish in the top three.

M: Fuck!

M: A squirrel just took off with a small black thing.

M: He’s sitting on the fence with it. Mocking me.

M: Mocking squirrel fled in the face of barking dog.

M: Small black thing now gone.

M: Feeling flushed. Hate global warming.

M: Going to lie down and turn on AC for a bit.

M: Yes, even if AC does contribute to global warming.

M: Return to project later.