A couple who look like they’ve been together for a very long time sit in a waiting room at the Western Hospital. The man looks anxious and uncomfortable, maybe even angry, and his wife will not intrude upon that. Holding her purse primly– like she was in church– she sits with her knees together staring straight ahead. She will not say a word. She will not move a muscle. They don’t look at one another. The tension in their lives a living thing, a creature that travels great distances and will not go away.

And in the foyer there is a Book and Bake sale taking place. A very skinny woman in a motorized wheelchair is looking at the cupcakes. She’s wearing a pink kerchief on her head, in honour of Valentine’s Day, and she is thumbing through a book called Rogue Angel.

All the donated books there. Books thumbed through on beach vacations, books that changed lives or passed right through them. All these stories moving through time, intersecting, and ultimately reducing to the same story: How will I live, how will I die? And at the kiosk beside, there is a long lineup for the Lotto 6/49. Doctors and patients alike. Pretty nurses are scrolling their phones as they wait, men in hospital gowns clutching IV stands, people visiting loved ones. Each person having a plan for the money, each one hoping for something–a candy apple red Corvette, a promising drug, some safe horizon. Past them and outside, through slush and snow I step into a taxi. I am tired and my oxygen tubing has caught on the door, and as I am trying to disentangle it, the sudden astonishment of a female driver speaking to me. Her accented voice from far away, the subtle trace of her perfume, like light falling on water.

Public shaming of members of President Trump’s administration has become the latest act of resistance against the government. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant, Environmental Protection Agency Chief Scott Pruitt was lectured and videotaped while dining out, Kellyanne Conway, a consultant to Trump, was mocked in a grocery store, and most recently Stephen Miller, a particularly loathsome advisor to Trump, threw out $80 worth of sushi after the bartender followed him outside of the restaurant and told him to go fuck himself.

Here, in their own words, are other Trump officials relating their stories of being heckled in public:

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

Mira Ricardel, Deputy National Security Advisor:

“ I was called a ‘Shit Donkey’ by some tall woman when I went to see Ocean’s 8 at the Cineplex. It completely ruined the movie for me. This is not the America I know.”

Kevin McAleenan, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

“ I had just finished collecting the quarters from the washer and dryers at one of my rental properties and was walking back to my car when I felt a little sting on the back of my neck. When I turned around I saw that some old man sitting on a stoop had just spit a sunflower shell on my neck.  He then fired another, and that one hit me in the leg, and as I reached for my taser he called me “a traitor to my nation and to humanity,” before twitching out.

Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce:

“ The woman working on my feet during my morning sports pedicure was extremely rough, almost violent while exfoliating my heels. And make no mistake, it was intentional. I can tell. And when I admonished her  and told her how lucky she was to be living in America, she said something under her breath in a foreign language. I called the manager and had her fired, but it’s getting intolerable, this lack of civility.”

Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education:

“ I was at the Illuminati sex party in Novgorod and right after the sacrifice, a man wearing a goat’s head refused to have sex with me saying, “Children in cages aren’t my thing, you Trump skank.” I had my mask on so I don’t even know how he knew who I was. Jesus, I don’t even want to think about what they’re saying about me at Martha’s Vineyard!”

Peter O’Rourke, Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs:

“ I was at a Bryan Adams concert with a few of my paintball buddies and while I was out on the floor enjoying the show I saw that they put my picture on the giant screen with the words, EVIL TRUMP FLUNKY across it. Not cool, Bryan, not cool.”

The system, it turns out, was a terrifying fail, and as a result of this the government has decided to refine the system before launching it anew in a few months. I, along with a number of other writers, have been hired to help write clear, effective messages for the probable alert scenarios the government is most concerned about. These are some of the alerts we have been working on:

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

Emergency Alert #1

Emergency Alert #2

Emergency Alert #3

Emergency Alert #4

Emergency Alert #5

Emergency Alert #6

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.”

There’s always one just-past-middle-aged man– usually with long grey hair pulled back into a pony tail or up into a samurai knot– executing some interpretation of a martial art using a huge wooden stick or some such. Whenever I see one of these men I am forced to imagine their apartment, and I do not like that. I do not like the fabrics and odours and screensavers

that puts in my head, and so I’ve always kept a kind of hostile distance from them.

Our park, the park where we take our son Jones to play every day, has one of these guys. He is pudgy, dresses all in black, and looks like somebody whose life had been taken over by Columbine ninja fantasies a long time ago.

As such, I have not yet chatted with him, and have chosen instead to make fun of him behind his back. However, since my completion of pulmonary rehabilitation I have hired a personal trainer and I now work-out in this park, which brings me in direct competition with the Columbine ninja for the creepiest man in the park. Yesterday, he was stationed, with his collection of magic sticks, by the bench where I now work out.

This is the conversation that took place:

Me: Hey there, what are you up to!?

Columbine Ninja: ( Continues his maneuvers without saying a word.)

Me: I’m about to work-out. Here. By this bench. This one here. Is that okay with you?

Columbine Ninja: (Raises one hand to shush me)

Me: (Begins to pull out resistance bands from a Shopper’s Drug Mart bag)

Columbine Ninja: You must never disturb a warrior when he is training.

Me: Are you a warrior?

Columbine Ninja: ( Does a maneuver with his big stick, strikes the branch of a tree)

Me: Nice.

Columbine Ninja: The true warrior is invisible to those who cannot see.

Me: Yes, of course, I should have known that.

Columbine Ninja: Not all who wander are lost.

Me: Are you a part-time life coach or something?

Columbine Ninja: I am a student, not the master.

Me: Uber driver?

Columbine Ninja: I am a student of Kenjutsu!

Me: I think you work at a weed dispensary.

Columbine Ninja: Anata wa seik? shite imasu.

Me: What was that, Klingon? That doesn’t impress me in the least.

Columbine Ninja: I wonder why it is that you have trouble breathing? Is it because you fear life? I think you are a scared man. In Kenjutsu they teach you how to control your breathing, how to master your fear before it masters you!

Me: I only have one lung.

Columbine Ninja: And all you need in order to live a failed life is one excuse.

And then the Columbine Ninja just walked away and I commenced the most melancholy work-out in history.

Excellent form, though.

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.

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

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.

I am now boycotting all of Trump’s luxury properties and hotels,

and have donated my, “You’re Fired!” t-shirt to charity. I don’t just believe in talking about change, I believe in being the change, and so instead of complaining about fascism on my Facebook page, I’ve started to picket the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

This is my journal:

Day 1:

Too cold. Stayed home and watched A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix. An instant classic.

Day 2:

Still chilly, but realized that the world isn’t going to change itself, so dressed in layers and headed down to Bay Street with my picket sign.

Teenager on subway asked me what my sign said.

“You’re a Chump if you support Trump.” I said, adding, “You’ve got to fight the power, you know? You have to BE the change!”

The teenager said, “Your sign says, “You’re a Trump if you support Chump.”

I looked at the sign and saw that he was right, and then asked him, “Well, if you knew what it said in the first place, why’d you ask me?”

The teenager shrugged.

Stayed on subway until it arrived back at the stop I had started at and went home.

Day 3:

Pleasant day. Maybe 10 degrees.

Took an Uber cab to the hotel and began my protest.

The first person who walked out of the hotel was a woman wearing a beautiful sundress, a winter scarf that must have fallen from heaven and a cowboy hat. She smelled like the most impossible music and was so blindingly gorgeous that I dropped my sign.

As she stepped into a waiting limo, I cried out, “I would build a wall around all of Mexico for you, I would make America strong again!” but I think maybe she was mute, as she did not respond.

I don’t remember much else from that day

Day 4:

Woke up and meditated hoping to receive wisdom and light to become better protestor.

I then went down to hotel committed to be the best protestor I could be.

I began to pace in front of the building chanting, “Dump-Trump, Dump-Trump, Dump-Trump!” Although I got the words mixed-up quite a bit, several cars honked, which I took to be signs of support.

Had lunch.

Feeling in the zone, I began to protest again but then got a text from my wife reminding me to pick up my blood pressure medication, and so I went off to the store to make sure I got there before it closed. Took my blood pressure while waiting. 120/70.

Not bad! Got my pills and a lotto ticket and headed home.

Day 5:

Took Uber down to hotel again. Talked to the driver about fascism. He agreed about its dangers. (I feel I am changing the world one little bit at a time!)Gave him a five star rating.

Today I proved an inspiration. As I believe we have to unite as one against Trump, I was delighted when a street person joined in my protest. She might have had her difficulties, but she was a very spirited, loud and creative chanter! Said her name was Parking Lot, because that’s where she did most of her work, and that Trump was a “Fuck Roach.”

It’s the hottest night of the year, and everything feels slower and more specific—the motorcycle whirring by, the exhaust from the bus, the distant shouts. Even movement feels weighted, as if gravity had been altered and natural time suspended, all of us now caught living in the space between an ending and a beginning.

In front of St. Joseph’s, broken men in hospital gowns are smoking cigarettes from their wheelchairs. I recently spent a long, uncertain time in hospital, and walking through this scattering of solitary men, all staring off at some internal horizon, I felt the need to stop.

Curtis, who was undergoing dialysis, had both legs amputated at the knee, was missing several fingers and teeth and was covered in tattoos. He didn’t mind being in hospital, he told me, because there were always people around and it was nice to have company. When I told him my wife and I were about to have a baby, his eyes got child-like and wide, “Oh, God has blessed you, sir, God has blessed you!”

We chatted for a bit, and as I was taking my leave it felt like we had both survived the same plane crash, but only one was able to walk away from the wreckage. After shaking his hand, and feeling like something almost holy had taken place, I walked into the hospital and later, at 4:40 in the morning on August the 18th, Rachelle gave birth to our son, Jones.

Rachelle was so strong. When the labour took hold and then seized her, she gritted her teeth, and then face a bright red, she pushed like a viking while k.d. lang played in the background. We thought this was going to go on and on for hours, as did the entire team who had anticipated a slow delivery, but suddenly Jones, whom I had been traveling 49 years to meet, appeared.

Neither Rachelle nor I saw him immediately. The presiding nurse, her face a sudden astonishment of joy, shouted, “Look down, look down!” And so we did, and there he was, glowing and perfect, seemingly illuminating all the faces now staring at him. For us, it was as if Jones was emitting a light that existed beyond sight, something so powerful and clarifying that with his first exhalation all the heavy, gritty air of the city, of the world and our lives, was cleared away.

The next day we all left the hospital– Jones, feeling the sun for the very first time as we carried him to the car in the Moses Basket a friend made for him. We passed through the smoking men who sat smouldering in the heat like rubble, but Curtis wasn’t amongst them, and so we continued without pause, taking Jones home. Home, an idea and memory that the boy and then the man, will forever be circling. And right this second this home is taking form, his mother rocking him in her arms, his father and dog watching from the sofa, a perfect and imperishable moment that one day Jones will close his eyes to summon.

(Photo courtesy of Donna Lypchuck)