Toronto has hit a cold spell - last night, over here on Danforth, we hit the minus twenties. It being almost 2am, I decided to take a walk.
I had always felt safe taking a walk in Goderich anytime of the night - my home town of a mere 7500. But here, I had never even thought about it. Just a couple days ago there was a stabbing a couple streets over. The media has people scared.
You shouldn't be scared to walk anytime of the day in your own god damned neighbourhood.
So packed with nothing but my A** kicking boots, if I so happened to get in trouble, I headed down Danforth - on the borderline of Scarborough and East York. I headed West. I wondered how long I had to walk until I got home to Goderich, because that is all I would have to do in order to get there is walk West, since Goderich and Toronto are almost completely parallel - except a good 3 hours apart.
I got that rediculous thought out of my head, lit myself a clove cigarette to give me a false but comforting sense of warmth, and continued on my way until I was almost at Main Street. The streets were dead except for a few old men making cat calls at me. To be expected - I must look like a tasty piece of meat to them. Maybe something as tasty as a good Alberta Striploin, or maybe cold leftover meatloaf - I didn't care. I just ignored their stupidity.
One of them followed me for a little while, I believe. I stopped cold in my tracks and looked behind me and just stood there staring at him. He buggered off.
I came up to a Tim Hortons and looked inside - there was an old man bundled up near the window. He must have been looking for some warmth from the cold. I went in and offered him a fresh baked muffin and a coffee. He made no hesitance in accepting my offer.
I got myself a hot chocolate and sat beside him.
It's funny - you expect people that are homeless to be smelly, crazy, and completely ill of any sort of comprehension or understanding. All cracked up on some sort of drug and wreaking of booze.
I made my observations.
This man was on the street - completely bundled up with what he had on his back. He sat there craddling his coffee as if it were his only child, and bent, squeezed, and dug at his muffin cup to extract it of all its crumbs, tilting his head back and gobbling it all up. He certainly didn't waste any of it - I was expecting him to start licking it, or put it in his pocket so he could smell the blueberries later, but he didn't.
He had interesting views on the city of Toronto. On unemployment. On homelessness. On the safety of our city streets. On crime. On violence. On terrorism. Simply put - he had a decent head on his shoulders. He had formed his own opinions. His own views.
Lacking in any sort of employment - he has more drive than a lot of the more well-off people that I know.
Than he had an interesting point about Tim Hortons itself - how every single night, as they bring in new loads of "fresh defrosted than microwaved donuts" (sorry, I had to throw in the fact that they don't even make their own donuts anymore... did they ever?)... they toss the old ones into the garbage.
If you ask them for one of these old donuts, they refuse to give them to you.
They would rather see them wasted than in some hungry persons stomach. You know why? Because they are not making any profit from it. If they can't make any profit from it, if they are not benefitting from it, they don't want anyone else to benefit from it either.
If I can't use it - neither can you...
I imagine I will see him around - people like this never disappear. As much as you try to become numb to seeing them around, as much as you try to ignore them, their always going to be there...
...in the form of a cold outstretched hand.
Tags: Homeless Coffee Crime Terrorism Jobs Unemployment 2am Late Walk Da
