On the Corner
The corner of St. Laurent and Montreal is a happening place. From the point of view of a periodic visitor, it always has been.
Wheelchair-bound folks hang out under the trees in the shade at the corner of the parking lot. They talk. They laugh. The group varies in size. Sometimes they have small dogs in their laps. Sometimes they gather instead by the tables in front of the grocery store.
Folks in the neighborhood meet and gather for coffee in the morning: men with dapper hats and striped socks and dress pants, women with silver hair and colorful sweaters and sometimes with grandchildren. They smile. They greet each other. “Comment ça va?” “Bien merci, et toi?” They sit with coffee and their donuts and talk with flowing voices and animated gestures.
1.
I drove into town just before the summer sun went down, and by the time it was dark I surrendered to hunger. In spite of the hour, the McDonald’s was full. There was a mother and son in bicycle helmets sitting by the door. There were two giggling sisters calling their mother and asking for a ride home since their bus passes had expired. There was a group of friends on their phones who nominated one to order for them all — or perhaps she was the one with money. There was a loud guy with a speech impediment walking from table to table waving and saying hello and then walking back to his friends.
And then there was this other loud guy who came in with a backpack and a sleeping bag and disheveled clothes. He threw his stuff on the floor and walked to the counter. He shouted at girl waiting there, but she answered calmly. He shouted again, but she smiled and answered calmly again. He threw up his arms, returned to pick up his pack, and cursed loudly without looking at the girl. Then he left, cursing as he went.
“The city has changed a lot,” Fatima said to me when we talked about it.
I suppose it has, although my sample is not necessarily reliable, coming here at most once a year. I supposed it has. She would know better than I.
2.
It was breakfast time.
“Hello!? Hello, are you in there?”
The woman in a red shirt working at Tim Horton’s held a phone to her ear as she knocked on the men’s restroom door. Someone was in there. They were not responding, and she couldn’t open the door.
She had called the police but was put on hold when she said it was not an emergency. She waited, and she knocked again, repeatedly trying to get the man in there to leave.
“Does it really have to be an emergency to get some help?” she asked someone who was standing in line for coffee. She pounded on the restroom door. “Hello? Are you in there?”
The police eventually came, two officers in two vehicles. They put on black gloves and they came in thru the doors and went into the restroom. The woman in the red shirt returned to her station behind the counter bagging donuts and pouring coffee. The officers eventually came out, leading a tall, skinny man to the sidewalk outside and eventually to the shady spot under the trees where the wheelchair people usually hang out.
Then they put him into one of the vehicles and drove off.
Still on the Corner
In spite of these things, people still come in for donuts and coffee and ice cream cones. They still go out for burgers and fries. They still talk and they still smile. The banging on the restroom door that morning didn’t seem to bother any of them. Nor the cursing guy with the backpack the night before.
Because people need their coffee. They need their donuts. Their burgers. Their fries. And ice cream cones. Life on the corner goes on, despite it all.