Although still too cold and unpredictable to be sitting out on patios, people, so happy for even the crack of an opportunity, are still doing it. At the Joy Bistro on Queen East, a middle-aged man, still feeling like a lion, sits alone in a thin slash of sunlight. He’s leaning back against the wall, a beer in front of him, his arms outstretched expansively, as if in welcome to the world walking past him. He talks into his phone, happy, communicating something he wants overheard as three women stroll past.
Further down the street there is some yelling. In front of the noise walks a prosperous looking man in his 60’s. Expensively dressed and with a head of luxuriant, white hair that likely saw the regular attention of a hair stylist, he had a rich tan that suggested he had just spent the last month in Florida or Arizona, but probably somewhere better. He kept his head down and moved swiftly forward, sipping from his Starbucks coffee.
Trailing behind him by about 15 yards was a short and angry woman. Dressed in a pink sweat suit, she had black, wavy hair that seemed to fall accidentally around a face that had somehow lost its’ character, it’s form. She was screaming at the wealthy man, waving her arms around at the passing cars, the passing pedestrians, as if trying to gather support.
“Yeah, that’s all we need is Mister Monopoly here thinking he can buy the world and do whatever he wants! Look at him strutting down the street like the King of the World, look at the fucking cocksucker! You disgust me,” she shouted, “you fucking disgust me and God, God is gonna’ cut you down!”