In the waiting room at the Doctor’s office I sat beside a large man who wore a baseball cap that said Bite Me on it. His thick red hands were folded on his lap and he stared straight ahead. An elderly woman walked in, smiling and nodding at each one of us. She wanted to know who owned the mobility scooter in the hallway and if they ever worried about it getting stolen. The big man piped up, as if challenged,
“ I don’t care if they steal it, they’re the ones going to jail, not me! And Hell, they’re not gonna’ get far on the thing, anyway!
And then he snorted, as if angry.
The woman nodded politely, and then they were both quiet, having nothing more to speak of.
In the taxi down Parliament we passed a long ling of cabs parked on the side of the street and I asked my driver why there were so many in such an unlikely place.
“They are all Muslim! There’s a mosque there and they stop to pray. They pray six times a day there! Can you imagine that, my friend! Six times they interrupt their day to do that!” And then he shook his head, “In Ethiopia where I come from, my grandmother used to always say that the greatest gift you can give somebody is your time. So why do you leave people six times a day to be with your God? I do not understand this. My wife, she still lives in Ethiopia and if I were with her, I would not leave her for six seconds, let alone six times a day!”
On Queen East the woman working the cash at The Wine Rack seemed a little giddy. Cigarettes smoke clung to her and she spoke quickly. Overly polite and eager to impress, she told me that they were famous for their good service. And then she displayed a big, grin for the nearly handsome management guy– just out of her league, but not by much– who stood there watching, his hands in his pockets.
In the fenced off cement grounds surrounding the Stephan Caras fashion house, a sour looking woman in an expensive jacket tried to corral the imperious poodle that she’d just let out for a pee break. Whenever she lunged at him, the bog bounded away, and then looking back at her would bark, firmly in control. The woman’s frustrated voice growing smaller and smaller, her life tighter and tighter.
At the Captain’s Treasures Antique store, the owner told stories of his days piloting an Ice-Breaker.
“The Beluga whales used to rise up and rest at the stern of the ship where the propellers and sun had warmed the water. They would bask there, like at a spa. I always fed them. Whatever we didn’t need I’d just throw over the railing. Corn flakes, over-ripe bananas, last night’s spaghetti. I couldn’t stop myself. ” And then he started to laugh at the memory, “Jesus, they were pretty things.”