Miss Katie and the vacuum cleaner are engaged in their usual struggle. They are evenly matched in size for Katie is small for her age and the vacuum cleaner is a huge old monster, heavy and own-way. Besides, Katie is only just getting used to electricity and is scared every time she has to plug anything in. When she turns the beast on, it roars and buckles out of control. Sometimes it reduces Katie to tears. But she doesn’t give up, ever. She spends a lot of time washing up and cleaning and scouring and tidying. Every day. She wants her mother to know she has a useful daughter, one who knows how to do things and not one come to suck her blood, as she says every time she is vexed.
excerpt
Fake Za’atar
In a city where the Za’atar is fake, We are a genuine family But not complete. We are assembled from fractures of families who think That farther is better Conducting a Passover Seder without saying God And believing That next year We will be in Toronto, which has been Re-constructed. Knowing that even if it were completely rebuilt, It will still be a night’s sleep and a little bit of a day away from Israel . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 1. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Waiting
Time is the roman numbered clock at Union Station. The one that I ask you to meet me at the first time —the one you can’t picture in your mind but find anyway. The crowd on the street is as fleeting as the excuses I made for you to meet me, to love me. The light is golden and I long to be encased— with you in the inbetween of these city streets. Normalcy closeting a vast architecture of the potentially complex. Your lateness soothes my devastation, for ultimately, it is presence. You are light and laughing and I will do anything to be interesting enough to keep you—with me . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 1. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“Time is the neon signs flashing digital reminders along the arteries of the Gardiner. You are a portrait of deafening red tail lights, foreboding the emptiness that ensues with your absence . . . ” —Gardiner
“Time is the roman numbered clock at Union Station. The one that I ask you to meet me at the first time—the one you can’t picture in your mind but find anyway . . . ” Union Station
The Russian Riviera
“Some businessmen” was the way Skinny Zyama had described the two gangsters from New Jersey.
—You want me there for a meeting with businessmen? Kostya had asked.
—You have other plans on a Wednesday afternoon?
—No.
—Wear a jacket, Zyama had said.
Now, stationed as instructed beside Skinny Zyama’s mahogany desk, Kostya appraised the gangsters. Zyama had placed two leather armchairs in front of his desk—chairs calculated to diminish anyone who sat in them—but only the smaller of the two had consented to sit. The larger one, the one doing all of the talking, had turned his chair sideways and perched himself on its arm. Instinctively, Kostya gauged both men’s weights. They were both wearing suits, but that made no difference. Kostya had proven many times that he could guess a man’s weight within one kilo even if he was dressed in heavy winter clothing. It was one of his few demonstrable skills, which—like his other skills—had brought him little profit. In Siberia, his father would occasionally take him to the bar to amuse his friends and to wager skeptical strangers a bottle of vodka.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 1. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
The Call of the Mountain
Every time Billy Bilkim Costanza entered the antique shop where I worked, he would find some excuse to say, “The mountain still calling me, boy. The voice in my ears might change but the message always remains the same. Always the same.” Sometimes he would pretend he was examining one of the old, creaky lamps that Mr. Pervez, the owner of the shop, had bought at a garage sale and whisper gloomily, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to ignore the mountain. I might be playing with fire.” Then his gaze would shift from the cluttered shop with its cracked teapots and freckled brass decanters to the door facing Albert Street. He never stayed longer than twenty minutes or so.
Costanza was different from all the other customers, not only because he never made a single purchase, but also in the way he would frequently gaze outside and breathe in little gulps, as if he was suffocating or hiding from someone. And he always left in a big hurry.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Caribana
In the summer of 1977, almost a year after Elvis’s death, I met my father for the first time. While many were still mourning the passing of “the King,” in Toronto, we were preparing for a party that promised to be hotter than the record temperatures that divided the city into those who loved the heat and those who didn’t. Almost everything I knew about Albert Godfrey was twenty years out of date. His lean, compact build, easy smile, slick razor cut, natty clothes and Ray-Ban shades had been captured in a snapshot taken on a hot day in 1958, not long before I was born. For me, those details were as close as I thought I’d ever come to knowing my father. Until that August morning when I rode the revolving door into the Sheraton Centre Hotel.
There he was, looking around the lobby anxiously. I could hardly breathe. When he saw me, a grin hijacked his face; I hadn’t seen anyone that happy in a long time. I swallowed hard, my stomach churning with fear and excitement, my throat dry.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“We detoured through Osgoode Hall, which looked like both paradise and prison with its pristine gardens and high, spiked black iron fence . . . ” —Osgoode Hall
“Outside, people strolled down the middle of Queen Street. It was one of the few days in the year when Toronto forgot its dull Protestant roots . . . ” —Queen Street
“Across from the hotel, colourful booths dotted the usually grey Nathan Phillips Square, and the air smelled of curry and fried fish. The clock at Old City Hall chimed, but it couldn’t compete with the lively steel drums we could hear from two blocks away . . . ” —Nathan Phillips Square