Where Are The Men?

“This is your history Eye-Dora, girl,” Eye-Dora told herself, recalling her past with the law. “And what I am telling you now, about a police shining his powerful searchlight on me, a woman living in this damn cold place, alone in a basement apartment; alone; at night in this rough neighbourhood, so close to Regent Park! His searchlight painting my body with its light, moving inch by inch over my body; and ‘that man,’ my absent husband — since in the sight o’ God, we are still married — but who is no man, at-all, at-all; gone ‘long a long time now, down in Brooklyn America looking for permanent employment, a thing he never worried himself over, in this country, all the years he lived here!

“And that next one, Barrington James, my son! B.J., loose every night, in the park, changed his name to Rashan Rashanan, and now wearing a star and crescent round his blasted neck on a fake gold chain. For that boy’s thirteenth birthday, I went to the trouble searching through McTamney’s pawnshop to buy that wretch a second-hand necklace that looked like if it was new! With a large, beautiful cross, in pure sterling silver. Yes!

“It was soon after the police had shoot the Jamaican fellow who grew red roses as a hobby. And what lovely roses, the Star say! The shooting took place years ago. Even before I arrived in Canada. And still, I can’t get this tragedy out of my mind. The Star carried pictures of it. It happened on a Sunday. Blam! One bullet. And kill-him-dead! In his rose garden.

“Yes, it could be that haunting me. And there was that other fellow, too. Another Jamaican. The police shoot him one afternoon walking down the middle of Bathurst Street, near St. Clair West; dressed in a blanket; not another thread on his black body. The Star didn’t mention if he was wearing underwears! But he had sandals on his feet. ‘I am Jesus! I am Jesus! I am Jesus,’ he was screeling, in a voice reaching up to the penthouse floors of the apartment buildings surrounding him, high up in the sky, transforming his journey, making it look as if he was walking in a valley — in a valley of the shadow of death, like in the Bible; and screaming at the top of his voice, at the people passing, ‘I am your Saviour! I am your Saviour! I am your Saviour! I am the Messiah! The Second Resurrection. The Second Coming.’ And all of the St. Clair and Bathurst corner hear his blasphemy, all the people in Cadillacs and Jaguars, late for work, were speeding through the intersection. St. Clair–Bathurst, an ordinary corner, was now transformed into the Red Sea. ‘I parted the waters,’ he shouted. ‘I walk,’ he told them, ‘after I changed the road into water.’

“Then the cops shoot him, dead. Dead, dead, dead. Point blank. For causing a disturbance. For walking in the middle of the road. For the crime of calling himself a Prince of Africa. A bullet in his head, between his two eyes. ‘I am Jesus, come to deliver the people of St. Clair–Bathurst from the Egyptians,’ he had just said, the words not dropping from his lips more than a second before the bullet smashed his head.

“And I had just left my apartment and was heading toward the Eaton Centre on Yonge Street; and I was in a bad mood, from the minute I had stepped on the last step from my basement apartment, to bring me level with the sidewalk. Ten o’clock hadn’t gone yet, then. In bright daylight now, as my two eyes rested on the mess scattered on the sidewalk, in front my gate. The mess that bastard had made of my garbage! Every piece ripped outta the three garbage bags. Empty Mount Gay rum bottles. Empty Jamaica white rum bottles, as I told you already. The crusts from the pizza that I had ordered in, the night before, and had put in a garbage bag, with the mouth tied. The cans that had Jamaica ackee, and green peas, and pizza crusts. Plastic Diet Coca-Cola bottles, from my rum and Cokes. I told you ‘bout this, before, didn’t I? Winter, yuh know! Even my sanitary pads, my God!

“That bastard ripped open the green garbage bags, for the whole world to see my private business!

“I could only stand up. And look down. There on the sidewalk. Whilst men and women passing, going to work, and looking down at my personal business. And the few young whores, the ‘sexual workers,’ as they call themselves, already out, at such an early hour in the morning. And no older than sixteen or seventeen! Walking their prostitute walk; flinging their arms and touching their backsides. They had the nerve to step over my private possessions, with scorn on their faces!

“And in the morning! In bright daylight. This was a few weeks back! Was when I see this man. This sammy-coot! Back in Barbados, we call them sammy-coots! Five o’clock! In the morning! I had happened to be suffering from insomnias! Sleep won’t come, no-how! The piece o’ canvas in the window that I would raise, to look out, and see if snow fall during the night, or if there is ice on the sidewalk. Five o’clock hadn’t gone, then! And there is this blasted man. Bending over my garbage. Pulling things outta my three green garbage bags I bought from the Dollarama store, round the corner! That bastard! He is one of the homeless ones from the halfway shelters, round the corner. On Jarvis. And Queen. Going east from the pawnshops and Henry’s camera store. Up George Street, north of Dundas. And the one on Sherbourne, the Maxwell Meighen Centre.

“But, all joking aside. With his two hands inside my garbage. Like a man pulling dirty clothes out of a laundry bag.