This place takes pains, in its d_cor and layout, to emphasize that it is not a fast food joint. You don’t order and wait to pick up your microwaved plastic of food: here you take a seat; you’ll be called. His seating options are small round tables perched high between bar stools, and the counter that runs along the glass wall, which separates the restaurant from the street. Too many times he’s passed by outside and scorned the sloppiness of the nicely-dressed eaters within, their plates resembling a wilful child’s. Careful of the wine bottle, he arranges his bags on the floor around the pedestal of the only vacant round table. He considers, and rejects, taking off his overcoat and hanging it over the back of a stool. It is a recent purchase, meant only for the remainder of a stubborn winter because his six-year-old down jacket had started shedding. The regular shops are already touting spring gear, even bathing suits and floppies. Only the second-hand shops, and the Goodwills and Sally Anns, seem to be living in the real world of a freeze that won’t let go. It wasn’t until he got home that his wife, who had approved the purchase in the shop, noticed the subtle but numerous signs of wear, magnified later by the dry cleaning. She wanted him to take it back, but he likes the trench coat cut of it: it reminds him of earlier lives in other places.
Today, however, it is an old coat on a scruffy old man – and, taking it off might release his musty body odour into this place that smells of basil and vinaigrette, mustard and sodium nitrate, the smell of youth, money and busyness. He is old and using coupons; he’s going home for an afternoon nap.
He pins his tattered pennant to the Globe and Mail, which he unfurls with a flourish to its full broadsheet glory. (The homeless do not read newspapers, except the free mini-tabloids that are found in metal boxes on every corner.) It is budget season, in Ottawa and several provinces, including this one. Dives and Lazarus. Scraps are thrown to the poor; the politicians await obeisance and re-election.
“Philly steak and cheese!” It’s the second time he has heard those words, the first a few moments before. He looks up from his newspaper. The Filipino woman is looking straight at him. Still not smiling, she holds up a tray, jiggles it at him.
For some reason, as he is going to the counter he checks his hands: they at least are clean, the nails trimmed and free of grime. With an effort he smiles as he takes the tray from her, and says Thank you. The smile was a mistake. She was about to say something back, possibly, ‘You’re welcome’ or, more likely – the mantra of the young these days – ‘No Problem’, when she glimpses the missing front tooth that his wife has been begging him to fix for months. Her lips tighten again in disapproval. He is glad he has firm hold of his tray.
The sandwich is surprisingly tasty. He eats slowly, buried, somewhat deliberately, in the newspaper that is folded neatly and readably as he learnt to do while riding the rush hour subways in London. He notices, as he looks up occasionally, that his table, with seating for three, is the only one with one occupant. He has become accustomed, in such situations, to people coming up and asking leave to sit down – or not asking. There is a stand-up counter to one side of the door that is almost full. A woman who has just collected her order slides past him and goes over to the counter. Fuck you, he mumbles to himself, and returns to his paper, his meal less tasty now.
He takes his time leaving. Standing, he checks the pockets of his coat and trousers to ensure he has everything, and is reminded of the old joke of the Rabbi walking through a dangerous part of town making the sign of the cross from time to time. When his Catholic colleague challenges him, he explains that he’s checking – spectacles, testicles, vallet and vatch. He considers leaving his tray on the table – there are several scattered throughout the eating area and that, anyway, is what bums do. But he wipes the table free of crumbs and water rings, as his wife irritates him by doing when they go out, and takes the tray over to the area on the other side of the door where there’s an uneven pile of them.
Back at the table, he slings the carry-all over one shoulder, takes the white bag with the books to be mailed in his right hand, the liquor store bag in his left, having put the newspaper around the wine for additional protection. He keeps his head straight as he walks out, pushing the door onto the street with a shoulder.
Outside it seems not so cold, perhaps because of the food in his stomach. The post office, his next stop, is on the other side of the street; he waits for the lights to change. He looks down the sidewalk and sees a woman coming towards his corner. She seems plump, but he realizes that she is wearing several layers of clothing beneath an overcoat that is virtually the brown version of his, and which brushes her ankles. She is carrying a battered gym bag, stuffed, under one arm, and holds a large coffee cup from one of the nearby burger joints in front of her.
Their eyes meet, and she gives him a wisp of a smile, sad, questioning. The eyes are young, very young. Her face is blanched from hardship and streaked with grime, but she is probably just out of her teens, if that. The hand holding the cup twitches at the same time as she makes a half-step turn toward him. While he’s figuring how to re-jig his bags to free a hand to retrieve his change purse from his pocket – but which pocket, which hand? – she smiles again, straightens, continues walking. She has misread his face: looked at him and saw a person like herself.
Before he can figure what to do with bags and hands and pockets the lights change, bringing one line of traffic to a halt and releasing another. He can cross, and takes three steps in his intended direction; then steps back and waits. The girl, hand fluttering the coffee cup, is going between two lines of cars, her sad smile flashing on and off like an erratic neon sign. She is having no luck.
He rearranges his bags. From his coat pocket, the easiest place to reach, he takes a five-dollar bill. The lights change again, and he stands, expecting her to return to the corner to await the next change. He waves the blue bank note at her. But she doesn’t look in his direction, and continues up the street.
Martin Mordecai has had many lives, the current incarnation being that of aspiring writer. He aspires in Toronto, having gone in the mid-1990s with his family from Jamaica, their birthplace, to live in Canada. He is the author, with Pamela Mordecai, his wife, of Culture and Customs of Jamaica (2000), a reference work, and will have his first novel, Blue Mountain Trouble, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic, in 2009. He is the recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council. He has ceased aspiring to be a professional photographer, but continues to enjoy making pictures.
December 15, 2008
Goose Lane Editions Launches New Online Media Resources
December 15, 2008
New From Gaspereau Press
