A short, muscular man with an array of angry tattoos cast across his body strides through Jimmy Simpson Park with his Doberman Pinscher. He always keeps to himself, this guy, striking intimidating postures on the periphery as if envisioning himself some powerful sentinel from fantasy literature. The other day Ace, his dog, bounded over and then took off with Heidi–our Miniature Dachshund’s– ball. Fiercely, like there would be hell to pay, the man stomped after his dog shouting one word commands as if wizard’s incantations. They had absolutely no effect on the happily bounding animal who was entirely indifferent to the image of menace and power his master tried so hard to project out into the world around him.
At the corner of Broadview and Queen, right in front of Jilly’s strip club, a black man tricked-out like a gangster, waited to cross the street. He had a fistful of $20 bills and was holding each one up to the sun to see if it was counterfeit, as if he was born to distrust or in the line of business where such protocols were second nature. As we stepped off the curb he almost tripped over Heidi and I apologized to him for being inattentive and when I did he gave me the biggest, sweetest and most unexpected smile, “no problem, man, no problem!”
At the corner store beneath our apartment a woman in her early 60’s was trying to organize the payment of the purchases she had spread out on the counter. She had the scratchy voice of a smoker and leathery skin of a sun worshipper. With her was a fluffy, little, white dog who kept jumping up and down in a leashed attempt to play with Heidi. The woman, trying to count change with one hand and holding her cane and the dog’s leash with the other, was trying to discipline her animal, “NO COURAGE, NO!! BE NICE!!”
I asked the woman why she had named her dog Courage and she said, “Well, because she has a lot of courage!” And then she gave me a look that suggested I might be stupid. I nodded, “that makes sense.” And then she softened and sighed, “ No, the name’s actually a reminder,” she said, “ I’ve had 63 surgeries on my feet and in order to keep going I need to constantly say that word, over and over again. Courage. Courage, courage, courage!” and she raised her cane up into the air, defiant, as if Edith Piaf singing, Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.