Westbound, Bloor and Pape — Toronto, ON

Caucasian male, mid 50s, with scruffy white hair, wearing glasses, tan pants, burgundy sweater, and brown leather boots.

The small bright blue nylon bag sits at his feet without shape, weighted in place like an opaque Ziploc® stuffed with a melange of personal items he’d sooner not carry in his pockets. House keys. Apple. Comb. It’s not something you buy, but take home from a cottage show, conference, or as a token gift for spending too much money at the fairground. He goes back every summer, determined this will be the season he walks out with The Big Five. The trick to winning is to shoot around the star, use the banks, and throw the dart higher and harder. He knows there’s no space in her dorm for a plush Tweetie, but every time his kid looks over he’s chasing a palm-sized basketball toward the soft pretzels, a green and yellow snake squirming out of his back pocket.

What was he reading? Click here.

Julie Wilson is a literary voyeur, the Gossip Girl of the Book World. She tracks readers in the wild at SeenReading.com. Follow Julie on Twitter @seenreading, and @bookmadam where she runs a monthly contest with McNally Robinson.