StreetRag ::: An Urban Notebook ::: Podcast

Pinned between the red and white tablecloths of a forgotten burger baron and the glistening switchblades of Clareview: Belvedere train station. its stained glass windows pour a teaspoon of beauty onto the concrete platform and i’m catching the 708 outta belvedere the wind rips over the place, icicles on beards, frost on toques, blush on cheeks the man with the dirty white hardhat holds a red cherry fag in his left claw got a scowl that could drown a thousand apprentice mudjackers the foreman’s lid gets him $37.50 an hour but i guess it’s not enough to wipe away the bourbon cracking his eye sockets or the cutting oil from his bootlaces puts his smoke out with a size 13 stomp his sparks fly into the snowy white

Saturday morning, three inches of white out there, but it’s still a cool thing to hit the Farmer’s Market. With my three year old cousin in tow we hit it early. It’s around 9am – early but not too early, the place has started to stir and there’s a little time before the stroller crowd starts to roll in. Looks like the snow and snap of cold has scared a few people off, though. Not too insane in the aisles. Little cousin walks around with wide eyes and has already mentioned the play dough table. She remembers it from the last time we were here. We’ll get there, I assure her. As we walk through the place, the little girl attracts a lot of attention. Her wild curly mop of dirty blonde gets a bunch of awwws and she’s so cutes. She straight-arm points at things she likes and plays shy with certain people. She is curious and beautiful.

Steel crossbars serve as stylish walls between the cafe and the adjoining hotel, shielding the morning-afters from the caffeine punch. The gates are open and there’s some cheeserock on the speakers, Pat Bentar – something about best shots and hitting, and I thought we outgrew this shit 20 years ago. Two bookshelves in the cafe, each one carefully stacked with mugs and other gifts. Not too expensive and the coffee sipping crowd goes for it. Guy over there at the high table, must be 275 plus. When he sat down, I noticed his fly was open. He pulled his shirt down in some embarrassment and took a drink of his black. Sits there looking into the falling sunrays, sometimes looks into the hotel lobby.

Millwrights never work late and their shop is dead empty. A few scraps of wood in the lot right beside the dirty truck tracks. Maybe enough to forge a toothpick or maybe a small splint. The post office depot isn’t a post office proper. They just have a red box in the front yard and an office and sorting plant in the back. Compelling tonight though, because someone left on the two-lamp chain-hung fluorescent fixture. A square of white light spills onto the pale grass outside. It’s beautiful somehow, and if only I had a stamp and en envelope, I’d mail one for old times sake.

Normally I wouldn’t cave on such a hare-braned story as this, but it was one that I hadn’t heard before. I fished a buck in coin out of my pants and gave it to the guy. “Thanks,” he said with great gratitude. “You’ve helped a man out.” Hope it all works out for you I said, actually meaning it. I washed my hands and shook his hand. Off, out into the night. Shivering a bit as I go.

The sudden appearance of the blue seats reminded me of the rarity of blue in nature; how the cosmos cannot easily conjure blue, yet we do it with no effort. Red seats were war, riders knocked each other to get a parking spot, they toothed and nailed their way to empties and chucked aside those who stood there. Red seats were difficult and fraught, little more than prickly crimson flaps coddling the backside of the citizenry. In front of my very nose the red has been replaced with a calm blue.

To the shitfuck meatfaced assbag who passed me on 76th avenue – a single lane road – pound it, fucker. You almost caused a seven car pileup with your impatience and shocking, dipshitted recklessness. To the dumb broad doing her makeup while speeding across the Groat Bridge at 110 – I hope you die in a fire. You almost sent me and a few other hapless innocents sailing unceremoniously into the north Saskatchewan. To the truck driver who didn’t shoulder check and almost flattened me on the corner of 149th and 118th, thanks jissom head.

We set out on foot, just beyond the tracks. The sun was fullbore afternoon heat on our necks and our faces. The hair on my wife’s arms was up and beautiful, the pines were standing and the mountains were silent. The trail started in gravel, the sound heavy and harsh to our ears. Five days of mountain living and already we had shrugged off the smog, noise, and crunch of the city.

Sitting in the downtown cafe, menu drawn on a chalkboard, 250 for a tall black, change out and on the counter – SLAP, just enough. I survey the room and discover that there’s very few seats. I’m convinced that cafes are purposely made small so that even when sparsely populated the look full and I guess that’s not much of a revelation, it’s kind of obvious now that I think of it. A trio of after work sippers over there, suits and skirts, tall iced drinks, phone holsters, patent shoes.

The walk up to Whyte Avenue was brisk, but my watchcap and woolies kept me in the plus. It was also two layers – one wool sweater, one fleece, a tumble down the gray sidetop to warm the nethers. The ride westward on the 106 was toasty, fan heaters blaring, passenger hands rubbing together, everyone together. The guy sharing the backseat is nodding off and the brunette over there is quietly sipping her morning black from a travel mug. I’ve seen her before and she looks like trouble, cutting eyes, serious flats.