by Monster

Created on: January 16, 2008   Last Updated: January 17, 2008

Toronto has hit a cold spell - Thursday night, over here on Danforth Ave., we hit the -20s. It being almost 2 a.m., I decided to take a walk.

I had always felt safe taking a walk in Goderich - my home town - any time of the night. 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 any time of the day in your own damn neighbourhood.

So packed with nothing but my ass-kicking boots, if I happened to get in trouble, I headed west down Danforth - on the borderline of Scarborough and East York.

I lit myself a clove cigarette to give me a false but comforting sense of warmth, and continued until I was almost at Main St. 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. An Alberta striploin, or maybe cold leftover meatloaf. I didn't care. I just ignored their stupidity.

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 quickly accepted my offer.

I got myself a hot chocolate and sat beside him.

It's funny - you expect homeless people to be smelly, crazy, and completely devoid of any sort of comprehension or understanding.

This man was on the street - completely bundled up with only what he had on his back. He sat there cradling his coffee as if it were his only child, and bent, squeezed and dug at his muffin cup to extract all its crumbs, tilting his head back and gobbling it all up. He certainly didn't waste any of it.

He had interesting views on Toronto. On unemployment. On homelessness. On the safety of our city streets. On crime. On violence. On terrorism. He had a decent head on his shoulders.

He had an interesting point about Tim Hortons itself. How every night, as they bring in new loads of fresh defrosted-then-microwaved donuts they toss the old ones into the garbage.

If you ask them for one of these old donuts, they refuse. They would rather see them wasted than in some hungry person's stomach. You know why? Profit.

If I can't use it neither can you.

I imagine I will see him around - people like this man never disappear. As much as you try to become numb to seeing them around, as much as you try to ignore them, they are always going to be there ... in the form of a cold outstretched hand.

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