On my way to lunch the other day, I stopped into a dilapidated corner store to pick-up a newspaper. I stood in line behind a woman who buying a pack of smokes. With the dark, ragged hands of somebody who has had to learn how to punch back, she slowly and without a trace of shame, measured out her change. In groups of ten, she slid piles of pennies across the counter, before starting again. 76. 77. 78. 79. The woman running the store was growing irritated. Standing on her tiptoes and shuffling from side to side, she kept trying to make eye contact with me, a customer who wanted to pay with paper money. In the background, the sounds of Korean soap operas played from the television set.
Lady Marmalade, where I had lunch, is sort of hipster central on Queen East. Radiohead’s first CD was playing and the waitresses, all thrift store chic, drifted amiably from table to table. In front of me sat two women in their mid-30’s, a baby that was likely both prized and resented, between them. In their busy schedules they’d taken 90 minutes out of the day to catch-up, “things have been crazy since the baby’s been born! Are you still teaching yoga?” the proud mother asked.
At the table almost directly beside them sat two other women, about ten years younger, doing pretty much the same thing. Still waiting to fall in love, they talked about the life that had yet to start for them, but surely would in just a few more perfect years.
By the window sat a young couple, maybe on a date. He was dressed all in black, looking more like a waiter than he would have cared to know, and sported a patchy beard that was meant to disguise the acne scars he was so embarrassed by. The girl had curly, rust-coloured hair and exposed shoulders in spite of the cold temperature. Her glittery purse, having slipped off the back of her chair, lay on the floor. Unaware, the two of them talked away, their feet occasionally grazing beneath the table, the shock of sexual potential coursing through their bodies like caffeine.
On my way home I popped into the convenience store beneath our apartment. A thin and elderly man, with a big cowboy mustache, was buying supplies for his cats. I fell into conversation with him, finding out that they were named Sittler and Keon, after his two favourite Toronto Maple Leafs.
“They’re the best friends I ever had, “ he said, “ they’ve always been there for me and never, not once, have they let me down.”
And to whom or what point in his life his mind was traveling was anybody’s guess.