When you approach from the back you will see workmen and scaffolding. You will see concrete, lines of vehicles and pylons. You will see obstacles. You will see a place you do not want to be. And at the top of the driveway leading to the entrance, there is a small bench beneath an overhang. It’s utilitarian, a place for patients to sit as they wait for transport. There is no view to be had, just cars and cement and shadow, and sitting there you feel like you’re in a parking garage. On the ground beside the bench, sesame seeds are scattered. A patient almost certainly makes a slow procession to this place each day. Feeling fragile and less than he remembered, his bare legs exposed beneath his hospital gown, he would cast seeds to the tiny birds who would come to feed. Amidst all this mess, this construction and revision, this tangle of concrete and flesh, he would sustain them. This mercy, his daily gift. And he would watch the birds hop and cheep, marvelling at their perfect eyes and darting movements, their little, old man legs and mysterious feathers, and how with one small breath they were up and away, lifting into the blue skies just beyond.

While driving along Bloor he started to talk about how much things had changed. This, a safe conversational starter for men past a certain age.

What used to be there.

What’s there now.

All the things we had known and lived.

And so we shared our wonder at the velocity of the world overtaking us, of all the businesses popping up on the blocks passing by and the real estate prices that had long since soared beyond our reach. Each aspect of this conversation revealed an unresolved bitterness in the man, a sense of having missed out, and then a car cut him off. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel, “DID YOU SEE THAT ASSHOLE?!”, he shouted as he accelerated into traffic. I tried to say something neutral yet supportive in tone, and then in an attempt to distract him from his rising fury, I asked where he’d most like to live if there were absolutely no limitations.

After some struggle, he offered up San Diego, but this only served as an entry point for a long, detailed story about being on a cruise ship with his ex-wife, getting ripped-off at the bar, and the fist fight that ensued. “They didn’t know who they were dealing with,” he said to me, his voice a cold, flat hiss.

And then we came to a red light and stopped. It felt like the barometric pressure had changed, that some destructive potential was either gathering or dispersing inside the car. And so we sat there quietly, lonely now in ways that could not be acknowledged. And beside us at the red light a beautiful young woman idled on her bicycle. When her eyes accidentally fell upon us, she quickly averted her gaze, just as we knew she would.

And then the light turned green.

She stood up on her bike and pedalled confidently away, into the future, I guess, and there was something so sad and beautiful in this, that neither the driver nor I even thought to speak for the rest of the ride.

(Photo credit to the great Lincoln Clarkes)

The other day I was in a cab heading east on Bloor Street.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in autumn, a lucky day, even, but I was preoccupied by petty grievance. The driver was a smoker, and in order to air out his car before he picked me up he’d opened all the windows. You’d think I’d appreciate this, but I couldn’t get past the heavy, permanent smell of smoke, and the open windows were just serving as conduits, breaches through which all my seasonal allergies might stream. Somewhat unkindly, I asked him to close the windows, which he did, and with that it was like a wall went up between us.

As we approached Varsity Stadium he reopened a couple of the windows I had asked him to close, but before I could protest, music thumped into the car. A marching band–glittering in red and undulating like a flag– was in the stands performing the Battle Hymn of the Republic while a football game unfolded beneath.

Somehow this ignited a million unanticipated things at once, and we drove through the music with our heads out the window, as if it was weather we thirsted for.

On the field U of T was playing Queens and the crowd sounded like a tiny ocean. The athletes, all perfect, all aimed from birth to this moment in time, stood about like gold and blue statues. And one of them was going to make the best catch of his life, something he would return to again and again over the course of his life. Somebody else was going to get injured and never be quite the same. And in that crowd another person would see a beautiful young woman smile and feel nourished. A woman in a wheelchair felt the sun, and parents from small cities and towns, drove in to see their now grown children– now so terribly missed, now just beyond their protective reach.

The driver, whom I had forgotten about for a moment, startled me by speaking.

“I am not from here, so none of this is familiar to me,” He gestured toward the football stadium. “But still, when I hear that music and see all the people, it calls me in my bones. It is a kind of nostalgia, but for what I do not know.”

It was an autumn cool morning, the dew still hanging off leaves. The air was light and clean and felt as if it came from very far away, and Jones’ eyes were so wide and bright they were like gravity– everything bending and speeding toward him.

A plane flew overhead and he froze on the sidewalk, pointing at the sky. He was blown-away and kept looking over at me to make sure I was seeing this miracle, too, this burning bush. I did not know how to explain the sky, or tell the story of how humans achieved flight, and so I just said, “Plane!”

He blinked into the sun and sky, continuing to look up through the green infinity of leaves, waiting for whatever else might streak across the sky. Squirrels, like shadows, jumped from branch to branch, and as this early light hit the red brick of the houses across the street, an old, prosperous looking man stepped out of his front door and got into his sports car. He’d traveled great distances to get to this beautiful autumn day, and he might have been wondering how many more of these good days he had left. He started the car and pulled out of the driveway, at which point three birds suddenly burst from a tree. Jones was amazed again. “Tree!”, he shouted, but his eyes were following the birds, each one of them off to unknowable adventures.

Jones stopped to examine every bush on our little journey, every forgotten thing on the sidewalk. He was so happy and slow up the street, so mindful. He wanted to meet it all– the college-aged woman struggling slowly along on her morning run, the two dogs being taken for a walk, the discarded table left broken on a tuft of grass, and the truck, the dazzling truck that rolled heavily by like some sort of glittering robot. All of it, each and every precious thing. And then we came upon some flowers and he stopped again, pointing at them, “Mommy!” he declared, “Mommy!”

And yes, yes, of course mommy was a flower. Nothing in this universe yet separate from anything else, and everything proof of magic.

Heidi now lives a life of glory with Rachelle’s parents about an hour north of Toronto. Today I have given the Blog over to her:

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

Heidi so very happy and popular and good-looking.

Heidi in best shape of her life, too.

Heidi superstar.

Heidi have no idea why not on cover of Sport’s Illustrated big sex issue this month!

Heidi hot.
Make no sense.
Editor team so speciesist!
All very, very bad dogs!!
Heidi bite them in face if ever try to pet her.

Still, Heidi life so very, very, very good and when sleep come, it carry Heidi and Jones on same dream-river.

 
Dream #1

Heidi and Jones go running at night.

Full moon light in us.

Fast run.
Green run through wet meadow.
Wide run.
Above and behind the dark wind follows.
All night we give chase.

At end Heidi lick egg sandwich off Jones face.

 
Dream #2

Heidi and Jones not Heidi and Jones, but Eagle-Heidi and Eagle-Jones. Live in castle in mountains of France. Very nice castle. Bedroom in turrets. Like lofts. VERY expensive, but Eagle-Heidi and Eagle-Jones super rich. Can afford it no problem!

Fly so fast and high! See everything. Eagle-Heidi and Eagle-Jones terrible missiles! We protectors of freedom and liberty. Fly like beautiful rockets, destroying enemy drones with fierce talons. Boom! Drones explode into fire-light at our touch! Hah! Stupid drones!! Get one million dollars (US) for every dead drone. Eagle-Heidi better than Eagle-Jones at it. Eagle-Heidi kill 268 drones, Eagle-Jones 12.

Heidi always teaching Jones, even when Eagles.

 
Dream #3

Heidi and Jones at Dolly Parton concert.

Heidi fucking love Dolly Parton.

Get asked up on stage to sing Islands In The Stream.

Heidi love that song so much want to be buried in it.

Jones doesn’t know words and start to cry.

Heidi SO embarrassed she show Jones her teeth and then pee!

Dream #4

In dream Heidi and Jones partners in high school science class. Assignment to dissect frog, but Heidi get excited and eat frog before start!! Taste so good!! Not like chicken sushi as Heidi expect, but like hamburger! Weird but delicious hamburger without bun! Jones mad he didn’t get to stab frog and start to cry! Little baby throws temper tantrum and yells, “NO!”

Heidi no take shit.

Heidi disciplinarian.

German in Heidi.

Show him teeth and growl to let Jones know Heidi serious, and then Heidi see another frog and eat it, too. Heidi can’t stop herself, Heidi eat all frogs in class! And then Heidi get detention because Jones sucky tattletale.

 
Dream #5

Heidi and Jones on subway.

Two-legger accuse Jones of “Manspreading.” Take picture and says post on Internet to shame Jones!! Jones no understand and start to cry!! Heidi get so furious she bite two-legger throat! Perfect bite! And then subway change and traveling underwater! Glowing fish everywhere! Heidi wonder what glowing fish taste like, then notice Jones has lasagna on face and lick it off.

There’s construction up on Dupont, and if you’re walking on the north side of the street and want to avoid it, you need to pass through the entrance to the subway station.

The doors are always a little bit difficult to open, as if vacuum sealed, and when you do a whoosh of warm, subterranean air greets you. It was raining outside on Tuesday, and a tense, somewhat overwhelmed looking student approached. Perhaps she was far from home and lonely, perhaps everywhere she looked she was facing an obstacle, perhaps she hated this life that had called her. Perhaps anything.

Plugged into her iPhone she looked so remote and sad, so invisible in the loveless expanse of city, but when she opened the door a warm gust of air came upon her. She closed her eyes as her hair lifted and blew back. Her face unclenched and a look of relief fell over her, and it was as if she had just travelled back to wherever she had been happiest. And for a moment she was transported, becoming something glowing, before stepping on the escalator and slowly vanishing beneath.

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.

Trump, even attired that way, commanded the subway like a stern and punctual marshall at a luxury golf course, and people knew not to mess with him.

Normally he would never think to take the subway, as it is a filthy and vulgar mode of transportation, but today he wanted filthy and vulgar. His legs spread out expansively, taking up at least two seats, he looked down at his most recent text from Melania and smiled:

“I am to poo you,” it read.

Melania’s English wasn’t very good, but Donald knew exactly what she meant.

It was their beautiful night together.

Every year on the anniversary on their first sex, Donald bought a fast food restaurant in the New York area, fired everybody, and then made Melania work the counter. This year, it was a Dairy Queen, and Donald, disguised as the Burger King, was going to come in and order Melania off the menu and then make her his fast food sex slave for the night.

It was a great tradition, and they both loved it very much.

As Donald sat there on the subway thinking about whether he should purchase and then and torture some of the homeless and desperate as part of fast food sex slave night, a woman approached him.

“The Burger King?” she said.

“You look low rent,” the Burger Trump retorted, “and let me tell you,” he continued, “I would rather be a king than some low rent subway hen.”

The low rent woman had full lips.

“Subway hen?”

Donald ignored her, Tweeting a threat to France.

The low rent woman looked closely at his fingers, as if figuring something out.

Suddenly, the subway came to a screeching halt. Everything went dark and Donald fell to the floor, his Burger King head spilling off and his phone skittering out of his pocket! When he looked up, he and the subway hen, also on the floor, were facing one another, their lips just inches apart– something unspoken burning between them now.

“You’re Donald Trump,” she whispered, “I knew I recognized those tiny, orange fingers!”

The stranger’s breasts heaved upon the filthy, seductive floor of the subway. He stared at the woman and she stared back, their breath hot and real.

Trump inched toward her and she inched toward him.

At that moment Donald’s phone began to ring, picking up an audible message from Melania, “Donald, it is your Queen Dairy, I have customer, and child wants me to make curl with ice cream that I cannot make. Tell her we close? Give her money? I stand by you, my man, even if ice cream disgusting. I still poo you, my king.”

Donald swept the phone away with certainty, like a Commander-In-Chief. And then the lights came on and the subway started up again. The low rent woman got up and dusted herself off and walked away, shivering, “This is the weirdest, fucking grossest day of my life,” she muttered to herself.

“Rosebud, “Donald Trump mouthed, “Rosebud.”

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

Rachelle: Pickle, I’m afraid we’re going to have to make some sacrifices in order to afford some help looking after Jones.

Rachelle: Well, I’ll be going back to work in the fall, and unless you think you can look after Jones on your own, we’re going to need somebody to help.

Rachelle: No.

Rachelle: No, I’m positive.

Rachelle: I can’t take Jones in to work with me.

Rachelle: For a million fucking reasons, okay?

Rachelle: Look, I’ve crunched some numbers and you’re going to have to get rid of your subscription to the Baseball Channel

and stop ordering lunch from Uber Eats each day.

Rachelle: Sigh.

Rachelle: I am not “busting your balls.”

Rachelle: Yes, you probably will starve.

Rachelle: It will be tragic, especially after all you’ve gone through, but at least there will be Jones to carry on.

Rachelle: I’ll make sure he knows of his father’s sacrifice, how you stopped watching baseball 8 hours a day and eating restaurant lunches so that you could afford to pay somebody else to look after him.

Rachelle: Look, I’m not harsh, just a truth teller. You knew that when you married me.

Rachelle: I don’t understand.

Rachelle: What’s a “side hustle?”

Rachelle: Oh, so it’s like a job, but it’s usually illegal, and you only do it when you want?

Rachelle: Why yes, that does sound like a perfect solution to our problems! What will your side hustle be?

Rachelle: Ikea Furniture Builder???

Rachelle: So, you would go to homes and personally assemble their furniture??

Rachelle: That is my favourite thing ever.

Rachelle: Yes, it’s even better than naming a ship Boaty McBoat Face.

Rachelle: So, just curious, how would you get to these homes?

Rachelle: Uber, of course.

Rachelle: Imagine, if you had a driver’s license you could actually be an Uber driver!

Rachelle: Yes, if you passed the security screening.

Rachelle: I know you have a “past,” ran with a tough crowd in junior high. It’s that edge I love, Pickle.

Rachelle: But let’s get back to your side hustle. Once you get to your “client,” how would you assemble the furniture?

Rachelle: Yes, I’m sure you would figure it out. Lots of evidence to support that.

Rachelle: You have a very good mind for all things mechanical.

Rachelle: You did a beautiful job on the crib, for instance.

Rachelle: Yes, it was as much a sculpture as anything else. As you say, Living Art.

Rachelle: But look, you could just get a job, a job could be your “side-hustle.”

Rachelle: You could work in a food court or maybe a discount shoe store.

Rachelle: The Bulk Barn, maybe? You might get a deal on nuts, that would be a bonus!

Rachelle: I don’t think Blockbuster exists anymore, dear.

Rachelle: I know those were good times for you at “The Block.”
Rachelle: Everybody came for the Pickle Picks, I know. You were practically a star!

Rachelle: Yes my love, times have changed.

When one of them reached up to the overhead compartment she modestly held her top down so as not to expose any flesh above her waist. She looked so very young, almost like a doll. She passed the time by watching videos, her face a shifting map of unfiltered responses, each one blossoming and becoming a kind of sunlight that illuminated her face.

The other one had short hair and the fleshy round face of a Buddha. She asked her friend to put some drops in her eyes, and one of them missed the mark, forming a tear just below her eye where it stayed unattended, as if a moment of sorrow now suspended in time. She was perfectly impassive, and as she sat there staring out the window her eyes grew heavier and heavier. Dazed and almost given to sleep, she seemed in a dimensional fog, just flickering in the limbo of this world, and capable at any moment of becoming more spirit than person and simply floating away.

I was listening to Sigur Ros on my headphones and it all felt like a movie, everything holy and beautiful, as if present only for my attention. Outside, as snow fell, farmlands, retreating forests and tiny homes sped past, more like memories than the architecture of the world. It felt profound, somehow, and then out of the camouflage and dull wash of scrub, a deer stepped from invisibility, so suddenly and magnificently manifest that it could only have been an angel.