The guy in the tight, black Speedo (shine over the crotch) is ready to dive; another Russian Jew, new to the community pool, unsure of how to say “Make way!,” makes his announcement nonetheless cannonball style: “I am here in your country. Like it or not.” In the deep end, suddenly I’m under a flying immigrant bent on total immersion . . .
Excerpts
Amal Sings at the Christmas Pageant
Amal stands in front of the gymnasium, she doesn’t fidget, she stands straight. Jeremy hisses, Why does your cousin always have to sing? and I shrug my shoulders. The gymnasium is almost quiet, it’s Christmas and students whisper like crinkling wrapping paper. Girls blow greasy bangs off their foreheads when they see her on stage. Her. Again. When Amal opens her mouth a crystal liquid pours out . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Saint Candice
Huff, huff, huff, huff. Candice ran as fast as she could toward a TTC bus approaching a shelter in the distance. She ran past Chanaman Roti Stand, the Rastas pausing their meal of corn bread and pepper sauce to watch her whiz by. Huff, huff, huff, huff. She ran past Madame Quan’s Nail Salon, the smell of acrylics filling Candice’s lungs. Her legs were a wind-up toy, rhythmic and determined, until she arrived at her destination.
The doors of the bus met halfway—with Candice’s kilt in between. An animal with its tail snagged in a trap, she pulled at the grey and purple tartan hard enough to thrust her into the lap of the bus driver.
“Watch your step!” the driver said, wiping her thighs as though Candice had left a stain.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Doba
“Red dilled tomatoes for breakfast? ”
My grandfather’s head hovered over the opening of a large glass pickling jar as he inhaled his favourite Russian delicacy. Dilled green tomatoes were normal, but red seemed to me to be eccentric. My family pickled everything, even watermelon. “It’s for any time,” my grandfather said, grunting with pleasure. Without pause to breathe, he fished out one more juicy red and popped it whole into his mouth. “Oy,” he said, as he swallowed and smacked his lips together, “it’s delicious.”
Open jars full of fleshy red tomatoes were lined up on the kitchen table. Ropes of dill sat beside each jar soaking my mother’s white embroidered tablecloth. A strong smell of garlic rolled off my grandfather. He swished around in the brine, squeezed a few tomatoes and triumphantly plucked one out.
“A beauty,” he said. “It’s perfect.”
“Who is it for? ” I asked.
Licking the juices running down his fingers, he looked up at me with a big smile and said, “Doba.”
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Pain Management
Dennis Hanley had used up three of his four weeks at the institute, a small salmon-coloured building on University Avenue’s hospital row. His Worker’s Comp had paid for the first two weeks, and his parents were paying for the other two. At the institute they didn’t call group therapy “Group” they called it “Conference,” and everyone was supposed to dress in regular day-clothes—there were no robes or gowns to be had at all—although by the third week some people just kept their pajamas on all day.
Dr. Krayman was a young man with a easy-going manner and a huge black mustache. In Conference he said, “Pain is a signal, and a signal is a message that has to be decoded. So let’s some of us describe some of the signals we’re getting from our bodies.”
A guy named Ernst spoke first. “I get a signal from my body that says I’m carrying a heavy weight.”
“All right,” said Dr. Krayman. “And how is that manifested in your body, Ernst.”
“I have pain in my back and legs that won’t go away.” Ernst nodded like this was something shameful.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 3. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“Dennis Hanley had used up three of his four weeks at the institute, a small salmon-coloured building on University Avenue’s hospital row . . . ” —University Ave.
“Behind a flower-vined red-brick wall on a side street near Yonge and Eglinton, he’d been pricked viciously by an old Jewish doctor with body maps on the wall . . . ” —Yonge & Eglinton
“And inside a pale blue room in a teaching hospital at the University of Toronto, a class of students in gowns that were too large for them watched eagerly as their professor scraped, pinched, heated, thumped and punctured various parts of him . . . ” —University of Toronto
“He waited with the two of them at a stop on College Street, glancing once in a while down the block to the other side to see if anyone was coming to get them. No one was . . . ” —College St.
“‘Melanie and I have a lot in common, we discovered. But yeah, I’ve spent most of my life on Jones Avenue. Went to junior and high school out there.’ . . . ” —Jones Ave.
“They crossed the bridge over the Don River and then went through a Chinatown Dennis hadn’t realized was out there. A city with two Chinatowns . . . ” —Broadview (Chinatown)
On a Day in May Encounters
My friend, my friend, I cannot stop the rain. I cannot catch your grey clouds in the cup of my palm and prevent the murky drops from seeping through the ridges of my hand. I cannot turn back time to foreshadow what has happened. Nor can we close our eyes to still the frames in our lives. I can only place my olive-skinned hand upon your cheek and tell you I understand.
And that is the problem, we understand too well. We can’t explain it away because we know what it’s about. And as much as we know why such events happen, there’s only so much within our control. Events have a way of unfolding, as they often do. We’d like to think they can be indiscriminate, but you and I know that this isn’t always true.
That Sunday, I waited for you. How I waited in anticipation. After a year separated by distance, I relished every moment to be spent with you. One o’clock, two o’clock, where are you? Three o’clock, four o’clock . . . and then as if on cue, I hear from you by phone, your voice muffled by the sound of cars speeding by.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 3. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“What? At the corner of St. George and Bloor, in front of the shoe museum, you say. On your bicycle, then stopped by two police officers, you continue . . . ” —St. George & Bloor
“And so at the corner of St. George and Bloor, steps away from the shoe museum, on one of the sunniest days of May, they search your knapsack, checking every item while throngs of passersby gather to pass their judgement . . . ” —Bata Shoe Museum