The other day, in the midst of a heat wave, I took the dog for a walk. Along the way we passed a man standing knee deep in a dumpster that was sitting in the front yard of a home. From a distance he looked like maybe he lived in the house and was presiding over the renovations that were taking place. It was crazy humid and I felt sorry for him, figuring that sorting through garbage in dumpster was not his first choice of activity for the day, and so, with what I hoped was friendly sarcasm, said, “it look’s like you’ve found yourself in a pretty desirable spot!”
In the thick, slurry voice of head trauma, he said, “Oh, yeah, well, I seen the dumpster last night and I got all excited to come out today and see what it had!” I asked him if he’d found anything good, and he seemed a little disappointed, “Nah, not yet, although I got a few of these old VHS tapes, here. Don’t know what’s on ’em, though.” Helpfully, I said, “Maybe it’s authentic Bigfoot footage and you can sell them for 10 million dollars.” The man looked a little bit stunned, and then he asked, “ You don’t think that Bigfoot guy is real, do ya?”
Up Broadview we passed a ramshackle home with about eight wounded hippies on the deck. Homemade signs in rainbow colours, pasted about the porch, advertised a variety of services ranging from Anger Management to Diet to Yoga to World Peace Meditation, but I did not feel confident that anybody there was really learning how to create world peace with their minds, as none of the people sitting there looked capable of making a dinner reservation.
At the corner of Queen and Broadview people began to whisper about the menacing clouds on the horizon. They were getting excited, a cooling wind coming from the north, portents of the divine.
Strippers in bikinis, partially covering themselves with towels, leaned out the side entrance to Jilly’s trying to keep cool. Holding cigarettes between long-nailed fingers they fanned themselves, talking saucy to the men walking by, trying to entice them into their lair.
And then the sky broke and the rain came pouring, pouring down and the city ran for cover. But I just stood there for a minute, letting it saturate me, and then the dog and I, both smiling, ran through the cooling rain, happy to be alive in it all and heading to a place called home.