cold weather birds redouble efforts, wrenching invisible crumbs from dirty ice; fake flowers bloom into expectant second faces, spring anachronisms against mint houses melting into peeling, pistachio porches . . .
TOK
Circus
As soon as I saw him leaning up against the tent’s support wires, his shoulders hunched to keep the rain out of his collar, I knew he’d be the photograph that would make the cover that month. I had ducked out of the tent during the trapeze show because my camera couldn’t catch the Kravitz sisters at the speed they flew across the ring. The day was dissolving and I wanted to try to capture the red and gold striped tent as the fog slinked onto the muddy circus grounds.
When I noticed Jimmy, he was smoking a limp, hand-rolled cigarette. He held it tight up to his lips as he sucked what was left of it into his small chest. His other hand clenched a fistful of tired paper flowers. He wore an old bowler hat and a tuxedo that was a throwback to the vaudeville style, with tattered black tails and a slice of red silk peeking out of his breast pocket. He shifted his weight from side to side, making loud sucking noises as he lifted his feet from the mud. The thick white paint on his face was beginning to run down the lines in his cheeks.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 5. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
A Change of Seasons
Amba sits alone in her brother’s small basement rental, warming her hands around a cup of tea. Bars of weak sunlight dip in through the window, painting stripes on the vinyl flooring and over the pile of laundry she has gathered. Her brother’s trousers are on top, the pockets inside out. A quarter, a dime and five cents are lined up neatly on the kitchen table in front of her. Beside the coins is a bowl of lemons, mute promises of summer.
It has been four months this week that she has lived here, since she exchanged her life with the man she came here to marry for picking up after her brother. The white noise inside her head is quieter, has been replaced by the blank silence of the sleeping city outside.
On the radio, an accented voice reports that interest rates are being cut, the IMF is warning of global recession. The steam rising from Amba’s cup licks her face with the scent of cardamom. If she closes her eyes it feels like someone’s breath on her cheek.
She hears the door shut above her, as it does at this time every day, and then footsteps drumming louder, closer.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 5. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
the menu in my heart is all wrong
my stare
goes from the plate
to the dainty language on the menu Golden Baskets, a tiny quintet
of brittle pastry shells . . .
then back to my plate,
and I wonder what my spice-obsessed
hawker-stall friends in Bangkok would think
of defrosted veggies baked in cardboard-stiff pastry cups
on the Danforth, limits of Greektown,
middle of a snowstorm . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 5. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“I wonder what my spice-obsessed hawker-stall friends in Bangkok would think of defrosted veggies baked in cardboard-stiff pastry cups on the Danforth, limits of Greektown, middle of a snowstorm . . . ” —Danforth
Tableau Vivant
Clara’s well into her thirties now, but she can hoof it enough for the chorus line, and hold a tune if it’s catchy. It’s her first season touring with Sam T. Jack’s Creoles, “the pre-eminent terpsichorean diversions of the day in the Afro-American line.” (Sam tells the press they’re Egyptians or genuine Louisiana Creoles at least, but the fact is he hired most of them in New York, and picked Clara up when he was passing through Toronto.) The Creoles don’t cork up, and all that dumb-darkie Jim Crow stuff is gone by the wayside. They’re a pretty classy troupe—burlesque, but not the dirty kind. Sam’s girls sing airs from opera, they shake their spangled skirts, nothing out of the ordinary and that’s what’s somewhat extraordinary to Clara. The Creoles travel in their own comfortable Pullman to avoid any possible unpleasantness at hotels, especially in the South. They’ve got their comedians with them, their first-rate olio men and some star females too. They pack houses all over the States and nobody asks them any questions.
In the night, though, Clara finds it’s a whole other story.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 5. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Around the Way
I didn’t realize how big Toronto was until my dad dragged me along on his missions. He’d load me up with toys and candy and tell me to keep my arm inside the opened window. Then the long white Thunderbird would ease out onto Davenport with the latest disco tune pouring out of the eight-track. We’d go all over. Scarborough. Mississauga. North York. Parkdale. Mimico. You name it, my dad had it covered. He even had some play up in Richmond Hill. Her name was Claudette and she smelled like the flowery perfume that old ladies wore. She had long shiny black hair that was definitely too straight to be natural. And the nails! Her nails were so long they spawned some of my worst nightmares. She’d either be chasing me with her head on a tiger’s body or I’d have the Dracula dream where her slime-filled melting face bounced along behind me. Wherever I turned, her wretched teeth and eyes pounced on me. Needless to say, I didn’t like her, which was fine, considering she didn’t seem warm or welcoming to my young skinny bones either.
We’d arrive and she’d head straight into prima donna mode.
Kendall, you brought him again, she’d say, cracking the door open.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 5. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“He’d load me up with toys and candy and tell me to keep my arm inside the opened window. Then the long white Thunderbird would ease out onto Davenport with the latest disco tune pouring out of the eight-track . . . ” —Davenport Road
“The one I liked the most was Karen. She didn’t have a crusty old apartment. She lived in a stained yellow brick house down in Cabbage-town. I still remember the first time we went over. She opened the door, said hi and gave me a big hug. It felt real . . . ” —Cabbagetown
“Her big thing was work. She worked full time during the day as a nurse’s aid and put in a lot of extra time. I was lucky to see her before bedtime on school days. Week-ends, she’d go over and clean rich people’s houses up in Forest Hill . . . ” —Forest Hill
“My dad wasn’t just about play. We actually did spend some time in a basement recording studio down on Symington. It was tiny and reeked of stale cigarette smoke, but I loved it . . . ” —Symington
“I don’t know if my mom suspected anything. If she did, she kept it to herself. Her big thing was work. She worked full time during the day as a nurse’s aid and put in a lot of extra time. I was lucky to see her before bedtime on school days. Week-ends . . . ” —Forest Hill